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STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 

By REV. EDWARD A. RAND. 


Look Ahead Series. 4 Vols. Price, $1.25 each. 

MAKING THE 'BEST OF IT; or, Tumble Up Tom. 

UT WORTH IN <A IVHALE7 1 ; or, Would He Keep 
His Colors Flying? 

TOO LATE FOR THE TIT) E-MILL. 

OUR CLET{K FROM ‘BARKTOW 

Fighting the Sea Series. 4 Vols. Price, $1.25 each. 

FIGHTING THE SEA ; or, Winter at the Life-Saving 
Station. 

*A CAWT)LE IW THE SEA ; or, Winter at Seal's Head. 
THE MILL <AT SANT)Y CT^EEK. (For Girls.) 

*A SALT IV AT ET^ HE%0. 

White Mountain Series. 3 Vols. Price, 75 cents each. 

BtAT^K CtABIW OW KE<AT{S<AT{GE. 

THE TEWT IW THE WOTCH. 

TIVO COLLEGE BOYS. 


THOMAS WHITTAKER, 

2 and 3 Bible House, NEW YORK. 


9 








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“here’s to the best class that ever graduated.” — Page 1 06 



TWO COLLEGE BOYS 


OR 


THE OLD MAN OF THE 
MOUNTAIN 



REV. EDWARD A. RAND 

V\ 

AUTHOR OF “THE TENT IN THE NOTCH,” “ BARK-CABIN ON KEARSARGE,” 
“ FIGHTING THE SEA ” SERIES, “ LOOK AHEAD ” SERIES, ETC. 







NEW YORK 

THOMAS WHITTAKER 

2 and 3 Bible House 


V 




STnNO 


Copyright, 1895 

By Thomas Whittaker 


CONTENTS 

Chapter page 

I. The Mistress of the School House... 7 

II. The Old Man of the Mountain 25 

III. The Sunday at Home 43 

IV. Taking a Stand 59 

V- An Inning 83 

VI. Closing Days at Harvard 97 

VII. Climbing Lafayette 116 

VIII. Wasting Away 132 

IX. The Rescue 154 

















































TWO COLLEGE BOYS; 

OR, 

THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 

* * T — I don’t like to confess it, but it looks as if 
X I had lost my way !” exclaimed a young 
man, one afternoon early in September. “ I am 
somewhere in the valley of the Pemigewassett 
River, State of New Hampshire, a river that comes 
down through the Franconia Mountains. Yes, 
here I am, but — but just where ?” Then he whis- 
tled a long, mournful “ Whew — ew — ew — ew !” 

It was Rob Merry, aged twenty, who said this. 
He was a stalwart, well-shaped young fellow, of 
erect, dignified carriage ; but he never made a 
parade of his dignity. He was very social, and yet 
there was something in his very look that, while it 
said, “ You may speak to me,” compelled respect. 
It also gave assurance that there would be no 
betrayal of confidence. A dog in distress would 
not have been slow to go to that kind of face ; and 


8 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


when human beings were in want they showed that 
they were at least as discerning as dogs, and went 
straight to Rob Merry. 

Just now he was the one in distress. If a poor 
dog astray had come up to him, wagging his tail, 
it would have been hard to say which needy being 
was more glad to see the other. As it was, Rob 
only saw forests — forests — forests on either side of 
him. Again he dolefully whistled. 

He had got into trouble because he had two 
qualities that sometimes get people out of trouble. 
He thought he saw a chance to leave the main road 
and, by making a short cut, save a long walk. He 
rather prided himself on finding out an improved 
way to remote goals. Then they used to say of 
him in snow-ball fights at school that he never 
knew when he had “ got enough." The other side 
would complain of him, when his side had been 
worsted, because he would not surrender, but would 
fight on, carrying the war into the heart of Africa 
that pummelled him unmercifully. Rob did dislike 
to give up any pet purpose and acknowledge that 
he had failed. He was very persistent. At the 
time of his tramp he had stuck to his improved path, 
and a more and more doleful whistle was all he had 
for his pains. He shook his head. 

He muttered, “ I honestly don’t know which way 
to go. To make sure, though, I will look all round 
and see if I can see anything to give me hope, or 
anybody — beast, bird, or reptile." 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 9 

So saying, he swung round in a circle, ejaculating 
as he turned, “ De — de — de — sp — sp — a — i — r — !” 

When the circle had been almost completed, he 
stopped. 

He thought he saw peeping through the trees a 
gray ledge — a — what ? 

“ Oh, what is that ?” he asked — “ face of a rock ? 
And is there a hole in it ? Oh, it is a window in 
a building, and this old road leads toward it ! I’ll 
run toward it and he soon added, “ Oh, it is a 
school-house !” 

He concluded it was a school-house for three 
reasons : because there were no outbuildings like 
barns ; because it was of one story, as if its occu- 
pants were all on the lower floor, and then it had 
that look of desolation about it which too often ac- 
companies a school-house. In the same way you 
can tell a prison. Beautiful trees grew less than a 
stone’s throw from the school-house, but for sev- 
enty feet all about it there was not the vestige of 
any growth like tree or shrub save ragged old 
weeds. It looked as if it were an object shunned — 
a kind of pest-house, lazar-house, leper-haunt. 
School-houses generally are encompassed by such 
desolateness. Why not make the grounds beauti- 
ful with trees and shrubs ? 

Rob neared the homely building. 

“ I’ll step to the door,” he said, “ and somebody 
will come, and I’ll find out if this be the way to” 
— rap — rap — rap ! 


IO TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 

And stalwart young man as he was, incipient 
athlete, member of a baseball nine and a football 
club too, the being that came to the door made 
him start back as if about to turn and run. His 
heart, too, went to jumping. It seemed as if his 
eyes jumped. It is a wonder he did not spring up 
directly into the air. The appearance, though, was 
feminine and anything but frightful. It was not 
because this being was a young woman, and infer- 
entially the “ school-marm,” but Rob had seen this 
being before, and the more he had seen of her the 
better he liked her. He could not be mistaken. 
There were the same golden curls ; there were 
the same expressive blue eyes with the long, dark, 
handsome lashes ; there was the mouth that when 
it opened always seemed like a sweet rosebud part- 
ing ; there were the dimples, like the tiniest nests, 
in the chin, and in each cheek as she smiled. And 
the smile ! It was peculiarly vivid. It was Mag- 
gie Gray’s smile. 

Bithar Bushel once said of Maggie : “ When I 
was a-visitin’ once, I went into a church whose 
winders were colored so gold-like and purty it 
seemed as if on a cloudy day the sun was still 
a-shinin’ to the folks inside. When Maggie comes 
to our house on a rainy day, the moment she steps 
inside the door and smiles I think of them win- 
ders.” 

“ Why, Mr. Robert Merry !” she now exclaimed. 

He was not going to be as formal as that. He 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. II 


wished her to know that he had not changed since 
those days when they broke flowers together from 
their stems, and he did not mean to prefix any 
“ Miss” to her name. 

She may have altered, but not he. So he bowed 
courteously, went up promptly, and, offering his 
hand, said, “ Maggie Gray, I believe. I am de- 
lighted to see you.” 

She was now as frank and cordial as he. “ I 
thought it was Rob Merry ; but you have changed 
so ! Won’t you come in ?” 

“ I — I thank you ; but I want to get some in- 
formation about the road, for I am a little — ahem ! 
— a little confused about it.” 

“ You haven’t lost it ?” 

What made her say that? “Lost it!” She 
always was a bit of a tease ; but Rob forgave her, 
and then proceeded to make her sorry for it. 

“ Lost my way ! How can anybody be out of 
the way when they are with Maggie Gray ?” 

She crimsoned. 

“ You like to rhyme even about a poor subject. 
Now you come in — do — and if you can wait I can 
show you all about the way. My school will soon 
be over.” 

“ Oh, thank you !” 

He was entirely willing to wait and then be lost 
again provided he could turn up at the same school- 
house. He followed the teacher to her desk, a 
rough, box-like enclosure, and he sat down on a 


12 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


bench behind it, carefully avoiding contact with a 
pail of water near by. 

There were about twenty-five scholars present. 
In one corner, stationed there in disgrace, was a 
pouting cherub, a small boy of seven. On a bench, 
waiting to recite, was a girl in a black dress decked 
with a yellow apron, suggestive of a butterfly’s 
wing. Near the girl in black and yellow stood a 
fat boy, a reading book in hand, and waiting to 
begin “ Our Country’s Greatness.” There was a 
young artist at a rough blackboard slyly executing 
various hieroglyphics while ” doin’ some sums.” 
Behind the reading class of two was a mute little 
sphinx, its head bowed on its desk — a child fast 
asleep. The most of Maggie’s scholars were boys 
and girls who soon would be young men and 
women. The seats were rough and primitive — 
columns of apparatus that had seen service, and 
before these was a big box-stove, as if a kind of 
captain leading them off. The stove very much 
needed blacking, and there was a crack in its soli- 
tary griddle. The great end of a stove, though, is 
not to shine or be flawless in its griddles, but to 
give out heat, and a small pile of wood near the 
stove suggested that, let a cold storm drive down 
the mountains and any moment the red, rusty stove 
could discharge its mission. 

“ Then this is where Maggie Gray teaches,” 
thought Rob, looking round. 

“ Scholars look on their books !” commanded 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 13 

the teacher, her cheeks looking like scarlet peo- 
nies. 

“ She has a lot of authority in her tone — a real 
captain,” thought Rob. 

The eyes and mouths of the scholars had been 
distended when she entered leading along hand- 
some Rob Merry with his fine figure. The eyes 
now fell obediently and the mouths shut. 

” John, you may read,” directed Maggie. 

The fat boy, standing up, started out in his con- 
ventional drawl : “ Our country has some very fine 
States. The Pennsylvania husband is — ” 

” Husbandman, John !” 

“ The Pennsylvania husbandman is — a — terrible 
— soil — eh — ” 

” No, no ; be careful ! The Pennsylvania hus- 
bandman is a tiller of the soil, John.” 

“ A tiller of the soul.” 

“ Soil, John— soil !” 

“ A tiller of the soil, and is disdained — ” 

” ‘ And is destined. Pennsylvania is a fine State, 
and her citizens feel that they have a great destiny 
— there, that will do for the reading class. All 
may go to their seats — everybody !” 

The cherub in disgrace willingly forsook his cor- 
ner. The artist at the board dropped his hiero- 
glyphic-chalk. 

“ They — they did not know they would have 
the honor of a visitor,” explained Maggie to her 
guest. 


14 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Oh, that’s all right ! If you called me out for 
a recitation I might do worse.” 

” Oh, no ! But don’t you want to hear us sing ?” 

“ I should be delighted to hear you.” 

“ Scholars, you may all lay aside your books and 
we will sing awhile.” 

This edict was welcomed. 

“ Now let us begin. Do — o — o — o !” 

“ How bird-like !” thought the visitor. 

“ Do — o — o — o !” roared the school. 

” A menagerie !” thought Rob. 

“ Do — me — sol — do !” sang the bird. 

“ Do — me — sol — do !” roared the menagerie. 

The bird looked displeased. 

The great body of the school certainly seemed 
respectful, and yet there was an element of dis- 
turbance in some quarter. 

The schoolmistress fastened her bright eyes on 
a corner at the right and said quietly, “ Order, 
please !” 

It was then in that corner Rob saw a mirthful 
face belonging to a young fellow perhaps nineteen 
years old. The head, though, did not rise above 
the level of a boy of fourteen. 

“ We will sing ‘ Home, Sweet Home ’ ” said the 
teacher. 

Her voice rose lark-like. 

The school made an agreeable chorus, save that 
from the corner at the right came in at times a 
heavy, disagreeable voice. 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 15 

The teacher’s face was flushed. She evidently 
disliked something very much. She kept her tem- 
per, though. 

Rob had two feelings — admiration for her 
self-control, indignation at somebody’s malper- 
formance. 

He rose to his feet. “ Can I help you ?” he 
asked. He motioned toward the school. He was 
ready to step down and thrash any insubordina- 
tion, beginning with the face full of fun over in 
that corner. No other face was disrespectful. 
“ Can I help you ?” he asked again. 

“ Oh, it is all right,” she smilingly answered, 
thought a moment, and said, “ Yes, you can help 
me. Let me speak to them.” 

She motioned to him to sit down and then ad- 
dressed the school in a few words indeed, but they 
astonished Rob. 

“ I think before you go perhaps you would like 
to hear a few words from our visitor, Mr. Robert 
Merry, of Harvard College.” 

The school was still in a moment. The face in 
the comer became serious. 

Rob thought he caught from that quarter the 
exclamation, “ Indeed !” 

Rob had offered to assist the school-marm, but he 
did not expect aid would take this form ; nor, if 
he had anticipated it, would he have expected in- 
troduction as from Harvard. How did Maggie 
know anything about it ? He had indeed passed a 


1 6 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


part of the examinations the previous year — the 
preliminaries — and of success in running the gaunt- 
let of the “ finals” he was reasonably assured ; but he 
had not actually got by that gauntlet, and, of 
course, not until then was he actually a Harvard 
student. He was in a flutter over an undeserved 
honor. Must he not correct the statement ? But 
something much more serious was demanding 
his attention — a speech, an address to the school ; 
and what — what — should he say ? 

He was in a kind of series of volcanic throes. 
However, the plan was to help Maggie Gray, and he 
was going to attempt it though it killed him. Rob 
had within him the material from which heroes and 
martyrs are shaped, the seed from which such 
growth springs up. 

Yes, he must make a speech, or attempt it, 
for a friend. It was a point of honor. It was in 
this case chivalry shown to the feebler sex. He 
hemmed, coughed down a lot of nervousness, or 
attempted it, and rose at once. What he was to 
say, how he was to say it he had no more idea than 
the man in the moon, called down to address a 
school in the valley of the Pemigewassett. He 
was vividly conscious that he saw two objects — the 
face in the corner, now wrinkled by a most peculiar 
and sarcastic smile ; and then, glancing out of the 
window, he saw an object that stretched from the 
ground to the roof of the school-house. Ordinarily 
that object is called a ladder ; but that moment 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 17 

Rob could no more have given its name than he 
could if it had been a fossil of a remote geological 
age. But he rushed into the battle. 

“ Ahem !” 

His knees were now convulsively trembling. 

“ Ahem ! My dear young friends V* 

It seemed as if his knees would unlock. 

“ I — am deeply — interested in the cause of — of — 
education ; and your teacher — has acquitted her- 
self — finely ; yes, I may say — finely/' 

“ That will help her," thought Rob, loyal to an 
old friend, and determined to say that much. 

The face in the corner looked displeased. 

What next could Rob say ? 

He put out his hand as if to grasp an object of 
support, for he felt that his wits and his strength 
were leaving him. Luckily he glanced out of the 
window and saw the object running between the 
ground and the house. 

“ Oh, that is called a ladder !" thought Rob — 
“ good !” 

“ My young friends, school is a ladder !" 

A happy thought. He looked triumphant. He 
pointed toward the window. 

“ Life, too — is a — ladder. Yes, my young 

friends." 

That was happy. What next ? He waved his 
hand gracefully. This was a signal to any thoughts 
flying round to come to his rescue Every thought 
had left him. 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS . 


18 


The perspiration gathered in large drops on his 
brow. Soon he started once more. 

“ Don’t forget — round by round !” he silently 
reminded the orator. 

“ We go up round by round,” said the orator. 

That was happy. 

He smiled jubilantly. 

“And — if you tumble off, begin again !” 

He paused. He wanted to think, but all his 
thoughts seemed to have escaped into the school- 
room, and he could not catch even one. He gave 
a ghastly smile, for he felt that he was near the end 
of his resources. He opened his mouth though. 
“ If you tumble off, begin again. You — you have 
my best wishes.” 

He bowed, stepped back, and down he sat ; but 
on his way to his seat he hit his foot against the 
pail of water, kept there for the convenience of 
bibulous scholars. Rob was so glad to be through 
that he did not care even if the being in the corner 
did grin most merrily and throw his head back and 
laugh, Setting others to laughing. 

“ Order !” rang out Maggie’s voice. 

It was so imperative that Rob was startled. 
Maggie’s face startled him still more. It was so 
determined — defiant even. It was turned toward 
the face in the corner. 

The young lioness was at bay. 

The room was suddenly stilled as if by a light- 
ning stroke. 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 19 

“ She is mistress here,” thought Rob. 

She was mistress, and like a young queen she 
strode down into the room and directed the school 
to prepare for dismissal. 

“You will go out quietly,” she said. 

The boys went out on tiptoe. 

The girls stepped as if the burden of an awe had 
fallen upon them also. 

“ She does know how to command,” thought 
Rob. 

Then he saw a strange sight in the corner that 
had been so conspicuous. The face that had not 
seemed above the level of that of a boy of fourteen 
rose higher, higher, and then a long arm came 
in sight, another, and a long body also, and a 
long pair of legs stretched up, and finally a tall 
young man strode down the aisle. It was like the 
lengthening of one of those extension toys whose 
parts begin to open and stretch and shoot up like a 
ladder. This animated ladder looked at the teach- 
er and tried to smile. Then he looked angrily at 
Rob, who contemplated him with dignity. Finally 
the walking ladder went sheepishly out of the 
school-house. 

“ Well, well,” said Rob, “ who is that ?” 

“ I will tell you,” replied Maggie, moving tow- 
ard the door. 

“ Oh, I can stop !” 

“You forget that you are lost and need to find 
your way.” 


20 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Ah — oh ! — yes, I do.” 

“ I can tell you all about that young man as we 
go along.” 

She locked the door, and the school-mistress and 
Rob walked off side by side. 

“ I must tell you I am not really a Harvard stu- 
dent.” 

‘‘You are not ?” 

“ I expect to be this month.” 

“ Ah ! the word came to us some time ago that 
you had entered.” 

“ I have taken some of the examinations, and I 
finish this month. I thought I ought to correct it 
in my remarks, or whatever you call them, but I 
actually forgot it when on my feet. Then all I 
could seem to think of was that the world had 
come to an end.” 

“ Did you feel that way ? I thought you made 
a good speech.” 

“ You don’t really think so ?” 

‘‘Yes I do. You said something — or, you said 
two things ; one was that life is a ladder, and we 
go up round by round ; and the other thing was 
that if we tumble off we must begin again. You 
not only made those good points, but you did not use 
up the entire day in making them, and I like brevity. ’ ’ 

‘‘You are very encouraging.” 

“ Now I will put you on the right road. I sup- 
pose you want the road taking you to the Flume 
House and Profile House ?” 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 21 

“ Yes — yes ; but don’t hurry,” pleaded Rob. 
“ If I get where I am going, and it is this side of 
those hotels — ” 

** I am afraid you will be out in the woods when 
night comes on ; but my landlady could take care 
of you overnight.” 

“ I thank you ; but I must find my father, and 
so had better plan to be with him to-night. Now, 
do tell me who that young man is. Why, he as- 
tonished me, for I thought he was no higher than 
a boy of fourteen ; and he lengthened out into a 
good-sized fishing-pole.” 

“ Who is he ? His name is Sibley Hargrove.” 

“ He is not a scholar ?” 

“ I hope not. Only a visitor ; but because a 
visitor I could not treat him as one of my scholars 
and reach his case at once.” 

“You reached it before you got through with 
school.” 

“ He is very provoking, and ought to know and 
do better. That young man has entered Harvard.” 

“ He has ?” 

“ Certainly ; and he goes to Cambridge soon.” 

“ Does he live in this neighborhood ?” 

“ Do you remember Bithar Bushel, the farmer ?” 

“ Oh, yes.” 

“ His mother was Bithar’s daughter. His father 
was a rich man of Boston. Both the father and 
the mother are dead, and Sibley now makes his 
home at his grandparents’, on the other side of the 


22 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


mountains — on the Mount Washington side, I mean. 
He will be one of your classmates/' 

“ That is interesting. What kind of a young 
man is he ?” 

“ A queer one in general ; and as for particulars 
I would not say he was positively malicious, but he 
is very mischievous — very. He has the reputation 
of being good-natured, but you can see that he 
lacks refinement. He wants to see the world, and 
he is going to Harvard to see the world. He swag- 
gers round, his hands in his pockets, and talks as 
if he owned everything. He is bright enough to 
make a quite successful man if he will stick to the 
right track.” 

“ How is it he is over here ?” 

“ Oh, he came over to this side of the mountains 
on a vacation, and he happens to board at the 
house where I am, and I don’t like him ; but let us 
dismiss him from our thoughts.” 

“ We will let him go. Do you keep this school 
this fall ?” 

“ No ; it is a private school, and I have not much 
longer to keep.” 

“ And you will go on teaching somewhere ?” 

“ Why not ? I have been to school several years, 
and it must not be to sit still afterward.” 

Maggie Gray’s father, Seth Gray, had met with 
various misfortunes, and felt too poor to educate 
Maggie, and then Captain Merry, Rob’s father, 
came forward. He had met her while he had been 


THE MISTRESS OF THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 23 

summering in the mountains, and insisted that a 
bright girl like Maggie ought to be educated. He 
had met almost all the expense. She was now keep- 
ing this school because the opportunity to do more 
profitable work in September had been lost to her. 

“ Some good comes out of — everything, I was 
going to say, Maggie. If you had not kept this 
school I might have been — ” 

“ Lost ! Only think of it ! But you are not 
lost ; and now we are at a point where I can show 
you your way. There, at that clump of trees, you 
come into the road that takes you up the Pemige- 
wassett valley as far as you want to go — to-night 
at least.” 

“ And it goes by the Old Man of the Mountain ?” 

“ Yes, and all the other men in the neighbor- 
hood.” 

“ I shall see my father this evening, for he 
is at a boarding-house. I am very much indebted 
to you.” 

“ And I am very much indebted to you — for the 
speech, you know.” 

“ Oh, thank you ! Good-bye.” 

“ Good-bye.” 

Then Rob made one of those graceful bows for 
which the Merry family was famous, and which 
had come down from father to son as a kind of 
Merry-mark. 

Rob turned again and again after he had left her 
and took out his handkerchief to wave it at her. 


24 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ She might turn round once,” he murmured. 

She did not turn once, but looked straight before 
her all the way back to the school-house. At that 
point where he could not possibly see her, she 
turned and looked soberly toward the mountains 
he aimed to reach. 

What was it he had said at one point of their 
walk ? “ May I make believe I am a kind of school 

committee and visit your school before going 
home ?” 

And what was it she had told him ? She thought 
it over. 

“ I am afraid I was not very cordial, that my an- 
swer was not very encouraging nor even definite. 
I am sorry.” 

She looked up the valley. 

The retreating sunlight was crowning the green 
forests with its warm, cheering radiance, but the 
school-house looked cold and gloomy. On her 
way to her boarding-house she would look off 
through any break in the forest to the distant 
mountain-tops up the valley, and they rose so blue 
and peaceful and restful. But the mountain-tops in 
her part of the valley had a singularly chilling look. 

All this time Rob Merry was tramping on, though 
not in a very contented mood. He felt better when 
he had found his father at a boarding-house a few 
miles up the valley. 

They were on a short camping-out trip amid the 
Franconia Mountains. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 

T HE next afternoon Rob and his father were 
tramping through the Franconia Notch. 
Each had an alpenstock and a knapsack. 

“You say, father, the Old Man of the Mountain 
is called the Profile. Hawthorne, in one of his 
stories, you remember, called it the ‘ Great Stone 
Face.’ It’s not far from the Profile House — south 
of it — and looks across Profile Lake. There is a 
place on the road where we look off and get a fine 
view. You say ledges on the mountain make it ?’’ 

“ Yes, three of them ; and they are as much as 
twelve hundred feet above the lake. From one of 
these ledges comes the chin, heavy and sharp, and 
running out very bold. A ledge above this furnishes 
the upper lip and the nose, sharp enough to make 
a good plough. Then comes the forehead, and 
that is built out high and bold, a forehead on which 
there is no flesh, just brain-bone. The three rocks, 
I think, measure about forty feet — the length of 
the old man’s profile. The Profile is what you 
hear it called oftentimes ; but the Old Man of the 
Mountain is the old name, and I like it better. It 


2 6 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


looks to me as if Profile were got up to go with the 
name of the hotel. They wanted to call it some- 
thing, you know, and Old-Man-of-the-Mountain 
House is rather long for a hungry traveller to say. 
At the point where you see it, is a guide-board, 
and- — ” 

Rob had stopped, and now, without a word, 
pointed off and up in the air. There, against a 
cloud, was the profile of an old man. 

“ You’ve struck it, Rob. That is the old gentle- 
man.” 

It comes upon one with strange effect at times, 
to be walking along or riding along in a summer 
vacation mood, perhaps thinking of a bit of beau- 
tiful scenery just left behind, or calling back 
some glimpse of fashion travelling in a stage and 
bedecked with ribbons and sporting gay colors, or 
in thought going over some stormy chapter of po- 
litical strife or financial disaster in the history of 
the world now left far behind and below — when 
suddenly up against the sky one sees that old face 
that has outlived its short youth-dream of beauty, 
its interest in fashion, its days down in the politi- 
cal arena or on the floors of the money-changers, 
and is now set in scorn for these passing vanities, 
these gewgaws of a lower existence. 

“ That, that, father, is fine ! I feel like camping 
down here in this particular spot, so that we can 
watch that old fellow all the time.” 

“ Very well, we will do the next thing to it, 


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 27 

camp just out of the range of travel in the road, 
but where we can see the Old Man.” 

They hunted for the right site. 

“ Father, how would this do ?” asked Rob, 
pointing out a location that seemed to him desir- 
able. 

“ Very good, Rob. From this point we can see 
the Old Man and at the same time be hidden from 
the popular eye. You notice, too, that there is a 
little swell to the ground. If we should pitch Lit- 
tle Shelter here, and it should rain, there being this 
little pitch to the ground, all the water will run off 
and not settle too close to us.” 

‘‘You anticipate rain, father ?” 

“ No ; I am not looking for it, and that sometimes 
is the trouble, for the rain seems to be looking out 
for us and pounces down unexpectedly and sav- 
agely. Now we can go to sleep on this knoll at 
night, and if rain should come down suddenly it 
won’t drown us out.” 

“ Little Shelter” was an unpretending tent of the 
size used in the army. Rob and the captain car- 
ried the parts of this small canvas house between 
them. It did not require much time to pitch it. 

Captain Merry drove down two stakes about four 
feet high and notched at the top. He had cut and 
notched these with the hatchet that was a part of 
his mountain outfit. Between stake and stake, 
resting in these notches, he laid a third stick. This 
was the framework of the little house. Over that 


28 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


frame was thrown the canvas roof and then securely 
pinned to the ground. 

“ We can imagine, Rob, that we are soldiers — 
tent mates — and we have halted for the night and 
put together the canvas strips we have been carry- 
ing/' 

“ A little imagination helps us in meeting the 
hard facts of life.” 

“ Yes, and helps along the pleasant ones, too. 
Now we will have coffee, if you will pick up 
some of the chips I have made and start a little 
fire.” 

” I will. I have some matches and the last edi- 
tion of a Boston paper. I suppose you mean 
coffee by this fire.” 

” Yes, that is what I mean.” 

They had brought with them a coffee-pot, two 
dippers, and three days’ rations. Coffee was quick- 
ly made and supper dispatched. Then the father 
and the son sat down side by side before their little 
tent door and watched the last of the light as it 
played round the features of the Old Man. 

There were some glorious colors in the sunset 
sky that evening. At first the display was tame 
and placid. Far up was a space of soft grayish 
blue sky that rested on a long, broad fold of pur- 
plish cloud. The upper edge of this was for the 
most of its extent firm and even, but the rest of the 
way it seemed as if the wind had been at work 
ruffling the vapor. Upon this ruffled edge the light 


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 


29 


had fallen, turning it to lace-work of silver. Half- 
way down the purple fold soon there was a tiny 
rift of crimson. It grew. It took the form of an 
eye, the light burning along its edges, and then 
this eye shot out long, slanting lines of crimson 
fire. It was too brilliant to be permanent. The 
fire burned away the pillars of this fabric of cloud, 
and it collapsed in one tumultuous mass of splen- 
dor. 

“ It would seem, father, as if all that brilliancy 
of color ought to affect the Old Man.” 

“ He has not changed yet. And that is what 
impresses me more and more — his look of firmness. 

‘ I won’t change,’ he seems to say, ‘ and you can’t 
make me.’ He has taken his stand, or his perch, 
and having made up his mind, defies the world.” 

“ If one is right, that is the kind of perch one 
wants.” 

“ And if one is wrong, a fearfully mistaken tem- 
per. Let us hope, though, that we try to do right 
and stand for the right. See ! He is going ! He 
is more and more indistinct.” - 

“ But he is there.” 

“ Yes, he is there. If I wake up in the night and 
come out of the tent to see how he is getting along, 
though I can’t see him, he is there. Something 
impressive in the thought that he is looking all 
through the night, staring in that way, staring till 
sunrise.” 

“ Going, father !” 


30 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Yes, so he is. Chin is going — nose — fore- 
head — ’ ’ 

“ Going, going, gone !” 

As if they were a veil flung over it, the shadows 
had finally obscured all features, hidden all lines, 
and the wonderful profile had vanished. Then in 
a little while something else happened. As if in 
pity for the old man, from whom the sun had with- 
drawn its light, a little white star came out and 
suspended above him its silver lantern. 

“ Now, Rob, the Old Man has gone into retire- 
ment, and we had better do the same after we have 
had prayers.” 

Captain Merry always had prayers at home, 
whether many or few might be under the roof to 
participate in them. After prayers this night the 
campers crept into Little Shelter. Rob’s arm was 
wound about his father, as if he were holding on to 
a big brother. That is one pleasant thing in the 
family relationship, the older we grow, then the 
relation may become on the part of the son and 
the father a fraternal one. This was the impres- 
sion made on people in the valley as Rob and the 
captain met them, that they were brothers. The 
captain was stouter, full-bearded, and gray hairs 
were twined among the brown, but there were the 
same Saxon peculiarities of fair complexion and blue 
eyes and of hair that never could have been black. 

“ Two brothers are campin’ out in the woods 
jest beyond the road,” one old farmer reported in 


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN . 31 


his neighborhood. “One is a lot older than the 
other — old enough to be his father.” 

That is a beautiful thing to witness in a family, 
father and son like brothers. 

The Franconia Notch is one of nature’s curiosity- 
boxes, holding many attractions under its lid. 
The Merrys lifted the lid of this box several times. 
They visited the Flume, that wonderful cleavage 
in the mountain ledges, as if a prehistoric giant had 
seized his great plough, and, driving it deep, 
had forced it far in also. 

The trampers bent over the rim of the “ Basin,” 
so near the road and so suggestive to dust-covered 
pedestrians. Here the clean, clear, glassy water 
shoots down into a granite bowl at such an angle 
that the crystal masses are set to revolving, and 
with all the effectiveness of a wheel of stone do 
they operate, for they carry round the bowlders on 
the bottom, and these grind and grind as if in a 
mill. In the White Mountains, tourists find hol- 
lows called pot-holes, where the water, revolving in 
a basin, carries with it pieces of rock that slowly 
wear down the walls of the basin. The famous 
Basin in the Franconia Notch is only a pot-hole. 
Rob and the captain again lifted the lid of na- 
ture’s curiosity-box to see the Pool. It is in a 
dismal hollow, tall cliffs frowning down upon it, 
while the dark waters, forty feet deep and over a 
hundred feet across, scowl back at the proud, domi- 
neering cliffs. 


3 2 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


The Brothers Merry on the last day of their stay 
purposed to lift the lid once more, but they would 
be obliged to climb a mountain to reach that lid and 
throw it back. This was Profile Mountain, and 
when the lid was thrown back, what a noble view 
of the Pemigewassett valley would be gained ! 

It was on a warm September day that Rob and 
the captain started on this mountain trip. Far 
above in the blue sky, tiny clouds had lifted their 
snowy sails and were peacefully navigating the 
azure. The path into the wild forest struck off 
near the bowling-alley of the Profile House. This 
path, having quit civilization at this point, led along 
the way of a small brook. Alpine travellers fully 
appreciate the fact that such crystal-footed couriers 
come from some higher point, and will guide one 
up the mountain slope as far as they run. As if to 
cheer the Merrys, a maple hung here and there its 
September banner of scarlet, or a vine, shooting 
ahead its fiery line, would execute a pyrotechnic 
evolution in the undergrowth. The climb is not a 
very lengthy one, for the mountain lifts its head 
less than four thousand feet above the sea, and it 
is less than nineteen hundred feet above the Profile 
House. The path is between a mile and a half and 
two miles long. 

They had gone about three quarters of a mile 
when Captain Merry asked, “ Who is that, Rob ?” 

“ I think I have seen him before, father.” 

A man rather short in stature was leaning against 


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 33 


a maple. His whiskers were heavy and had what 
might be called a centrifugal tendency. His mus- 
tache had a very fierce length. The man’s slender 
body looked like a pole to support this fly-away 
mass of hair. His nose was long and pointed, his 
forehead retreating, and his small black eyes were 
half hidden by overhanging eyebrows. He had 
the look of an animal scenting out something, and 
something evil, and unless of his kind, one shrank 
from him. 

Captain Merry as he approached him shrank 
toward Rob, and Rob shrank toward the woods 
beyond the path. They were not afraid, for they 
showed an imposing strength by the side of his 
stature. It was the instinct of aversion, not terror. 
When he spoke, though, his voice was not like his 
appearance, rough and disagreeable. His tones 
were pleasant, almost musical. His speech was 
glib as hot molasses. 

“ Good-morning, gentlemen,” he said, touching 
his hat courteously and with the air of a metro- 
politan. 

“ Oh, father,” said Rob, recalling now an old 
acquaintance, “ this is Mr. Plumperty !” 

Rob wondered just how his father would treat 
the man whose identity the captain was trying to 
establish, though not favorably. Captain Merry 
was one of those men who want to shake hands 
with everybody, and yet they have much sincerity 
of character and hate to assume a cordiality they 


34 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


cannot feel. His children, who knew him so well, 
were amused sometimes to see his attitude toward 
one he liked and trusted, and then toward one he 
could not respect or like. If it were Bithar Bushel, 
the old White Mountain farmer, whom he liked 
and respected through and through, the captain 
would almost run to him, grasp his hand, beam on 
him, and exclaim, “ Mr. Bushel, how do you do ? I 
hope you are well this morning. It does me good 
to see you.” 

In the present case the captain slowly advanced 
toward Mr. Plumperty, half holding out his hand 
and stumbling over the very name, and in a low 
tone mumbled, “ Ah, Mr. Pompernelly, I hope — 
you — are — well. ’ ’ 

He did not smile, but looked as if the occasion 
were a drug to him which he did not wish to swallow. 

Mr. Plumperty cried out noisily and in a tone of 
offensive familiarity, “You remember me, Robert ? 
Ha ! ha ! We had a smoke together once.” 

“ Oh, yes, Bonaparte Plumperty,” replied Rob 
coolly. 

Bonaparte Plumperty did not like to be accosted 
with that degree of familiarity he had used toward 
Rob, and he now scowled and turned away from 
him. 

“ Captain Merry,” he said, pulling out his hand 
thrust under his coat, and producing a flask, “ I am 
about to enjoy a little treat, and wish you would 
join me.” 



“ MY POINT IS — DON’T PLAY WITH THE LION.” — Page JJ. 




THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 35 


“ I thank you, sir, but I think I will not take 
anything. ” 

The captain said this courteously, but with posi- 
tiveness. 

“ Now, Captain Merry, don’t you think you are 
too hard on us young fellows ?” 

He is approaching the wrong customer,” 
thought Rob. ” He will get more than he bar- 
gains for.” 

“ Mr. Pompernelly — ” began the captain. 

” Plumperty, sir, and at your service — Mr. 
Plumperty.” 

This was accompanied by a most impressive 
bow. 

“ Mr. Pumperty, I never mean to be hard on a 
young man. I like young men, and I like to asso- 
ciate with them, and for that very reason I want to 
seek their best interests. But I know that in young 
men — in old men, as for that, and in everybody, in 
fact — there is an element that we must not trifle 
ivith. Sometimes we call it appetite, but it must 
oe watched. A liking for drink may become a 
passion for drink, and instead of our mastering it, 
it masters us. We become slaves to it. My point 
is” — here the captain raised his voice and gesticu- 
lated with his finger—” don’t play with the lion ! 
Don’t play with the lion !” 

” Don’t play with the lion ?” said Plumperty 
sneeringly. ” Why, what lion is there round here 
to be trifled with ? It isn’t your son ?” 


3 6 


TWO COLLEGE BOVS. 


“ It might be,” thought Rob, “ if you get him 
mad.” 

“ The lion is inside of you, sir — within every one 
of us.” 

“ Ha ! ha ! ha ! — a lion within this humble 
bosom !” 

Here Plumperty mockingly threw back his coat, 
revealing a not very expansive breast. 

“ I can’t say that it is a very big lion, Mr. 
P — Pomperpelly,” said the captain pleasantly while 
stumbling on to a new title, “ but it is big enough 
to make you serious trouble if you trifle with it. 
Don’t play with it is my advice. Some things we 
cannot safely handle, and intoxicating beverages 
are among them. Let them alone is my ad- 
vice. Don’t play with the evil, I say. Good-day, 
sir !” 

Plumperty was staring at Captain Merry, and 
was anxious to make a reply, but the captain did 
not give him an opportunity, so rapidly did he stride 
away. 

“ Don’t play with the lion !” soliloquized Plump- 
erty. “ My family would laugh if they were called 
upon to find a lion inside of me. ‘ Little runt ’ is 
what my sister calls me. Big lion ! ha! ha! Now, 
lion, behave ! Keep still down there, or I’ll 
drown ye !” 

Plumperty here gave an effective tip to his flask 
and then laughed again. “ I suppose the captain 
saw a boy play with a lion in a menagerie, and the 


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 37 

lion got the better of the boy ; but I’m not that 
boy. Don’t play with the lion ! — ha ! ha !” 

Rob and his father in the mean time were tramp- 
ing on. They, climbed higher and higher. The 
mountain world went with them, rising up grander 
and grander as they rose, coming up out of its con- 
cealment and putting on all its witchery of castel- 
lated summit, of imposing cliff, of deep, dark 
ravines. At one point a crest would be seen along 
which a cloud would draw its band of snowy vapor, 
as if winding a scarf about it. Then would shoot 
up a blue, pyramid-like peak, towering in all the 
solitude of its imperial beauty. To be alone is 
always the destiny of excellence in nature or man. 
A far-down valley might be seen like a rug unroll- 
ing its emerald at the foot of a hill, or there might 
be the crystal of a lake set in the landscape, or 
above these would be seen a succession of mighty 
mountains, like stately terraces leading up to in- 
visible palaces. 

“ Oh, Rob, that is magnificent ! There is La- 
fayette !” called out the captain when the biggest 
of the mountain giants showed all the impressive- 
ness of his form. 

It was a great, towering mass of forest and rock 
they saw, crag upon crag, swelling up higher and 
higher till its bold crest-line was drawn sharply 
against the upper spaces of the September sky. 
Lafayette is the tallest, grandest of the Franconia 
Mountains, the king with a height of five thousand 


38 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


two hundred and fifty-nine feet. It throws out for- 
midable spurs and has deep, gloomy gorges, all 
which are fitting adjuncts to the majesty of La- 
fayette. They are like the columnar rows and mys- 
terious passages leading to a central imposing 
shrine. One of its royal features is Eagle Cliff, 
with its noble, precipitous front, across which the 
lights and shadows trail their robes in a beauty 
that is fascinating as it is changeful. The cliff is 
three thousand four hundred and forty-six feet 
above the sea, and rises above the Profile House 
one thousand four hundred and seventy-two feet. 
Eagles undoubtedly soared above it on their grand 
pinions and made in its sheltering nooks their home, 
as an eagle’s nest that was found there gave the 
cliff its impressive name. It is one of the grandest 
displays of rock in all the White Mountain range. 
The autumn birches and maple at the time of this 
visit were just beginning to kindle a fire in some 
of the cliff’s dusky crevices ; but its greatest and 
permanent glory is in the strong, broad sweep of 
light and shade, or the graceful play of airy clouds 
along its bare, bold, rocky front. 

In contrast with the grandeur of Lafayette and 
its attendant crags was the fascination of the valley 
view to the south. The alpine climbers leaned 
upon the long sticks they had cut, and looked down 
the Pemigewassett valley. The lid of nature’s 
casket was here thrown far back. 

“ Lafayette is grand, awful, and compels my re- 


THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 39 

spect ; but I fall in love at once with this valley 
view,” said Captain Merry. 

The valley stretched far to the south, just a fair, 
green garden, along which the Pemigewassett 
drew the silvery trace of its waters. Here and 
there were farmhouses dotting spaces of cleared 
land, and then succeeded masses of forest trees. 
On either hand, enclosing, preserving, guarding 
this garden of the king, rose the blue mountains. 

The eager eyes of the climbers long dwelt upon 
the beauty of this enchanted land, and then they 
sought other attractions of Cannon Mountain. The 
ledge that gives Cannon Mountain its name they 
reached by descending a few rods to the left. 
From below, Cannon Rock looks like a cannon ; on 
the mountain it is simply an excellent view-point 
from which to see big Lafayette or the diminutive 
Profile House, far — far down. Then they made a 
visit to the ledges that give the Profile its name ; 
but the Old Man is shy. When approached he 
threatens isolation in the rear of his hard, craggy 
cliffs, and when they are reached, he is not 
there ! 

It was a mocking phantom. The magician has 
gone ! It was a wizard from the Indian folkland. 
There are only confusing ledges. The visitor may 
wonder where the venerable patriarch of the moun- 
tains may have retired, while admirers below still 
see his hard, grim features protruding into the sky, 
and through their eye-glasses may wonder what 


40 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


Alpine climbers, dwindled to fly size, may be crawl- 
ing over the crags. 

As Rob and his father descended the mountain, 
and were in the thickest of the forests, Rob cried 
out, “ Hold a minute, father ! I think I heard a 
cry.” 

The captain halted. 

They listened. 

” It is a cry for help over at the right, Rob.” 

“It is an ugly place or a confusing one to have 
trouble in. You stay here and I will go, for I am 
younger, father.” 

“ One of us had better stay ; but let me go. 
Have you your whistle ?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

In their mountain trips they always took with 
them a strong, vigorous whistle for signalling. 

Rob would now go, saying, ‘‘ One whistle will 
mean all right ; two whistles that I want you.” 

Rob pushed off in the direction of the cries for 
help. 

” I am thinking what I shall do,” mused the 
captain, “ if Rob gives a second whistle and I have 
to leave the path. How will we get back to 
it ?” 

Here he caught a double whistle. 

Giving a prolonged response, the captain plunged 
into the trackless forest.* 

He broke off a branch here and there, and so 
marked his way. Soon he ca,me to Rob, his arms 


THE OLD MAH OF THE MOUNTAIN. 41 


filled with Plumperty, and toiling toward the cap- 
tain. 

“ Plumperty, father ; it’s Plumperty, and the 
worse off for liquor ; but he knew enough to be 
aware that he had hurt himself, and he could shout 
for help, but he fainted back here a little way, and 
I thought I had bettet whistle.” 

There, Rob, let me take him and spell you. 
We will get him down to the brook.” 

The captain did say, “Pm sorry to see this,” 
and might have added, “ Very badly scratched by 
the lion he played with,” but he did not say it. 
The Merry nature was a very frank, open one ; and 
if a person were going upon a wrong course the 
captain was very likely to say a word of caution, 
which was always kindly. When the poor fool 
came back from his mistaken dalliance with the 
lion, then the Merry nature was given to sorrow 
and ways of relief rather than rebuke. Rob had 
inherited this magnanimity. 

Plumperty revived at the liberal administration 
of the element that he generally hated, and he was 
soon helped down to the Profile House and left 
there. 

Rob and his father slept that night in Little Shel- 
ter and broke camp at an early hour in the morn- 
ing. 

They lingered a few moments to take a last look 
at the Old Man of the Mountain. There he was, 
facing the world down the valley, grim, set, defiant. 


42 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ I can’t say that I want your spirit,” thought 
Rob ; “ but may I have your resoluteness — be just 
as firm and stiff in a good cause as you are in defy- 
ing everything.” 

He looked once more, lifted his hat, said defer- 
entially, “ Good-bye, Old Man,” and was off. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE SUNDAY AT HOME. 

I PUT the subject of this chapter as the Sunday 
at home. It would not have been appropri 
ate as a Sunday at home, for this would have an- 
swered for any Sunday. The Sunday of this chap- 
ter was peculiar — it stood by itself. 

It was the last Sunday before Rob went to Cam- 
bridge. 

It was a Sunday of events, one in the church in 
the morning, the other in Captain Merry’s garden 
in the afternoon. 

Captain Merry was a church-going man. His 
family was one of church-goers. Rob had been 
brought up to be particular in his church-going 
habit. 

Of course this special Sunday he was in the 
Merry pew at St. John’s. 

It was a lovely old church. 

Succeeding those adjectives, a church of stone 
might have been expected, with a graceful spire 
and a tuneful chime of bells showering down notes 
richer than gold or silver or precious stones. 

It was not a stone church. 


44 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


It was a structure of brick, built in 1802. Look- 
ing at the style of its two rows of windows, at that 
of the plain, square tower, on which sat its unpre- 
tentious belfry, at the mark of Time’s fingers laid 
lovingly upon it here and there, one would have 
promptly said, “ This is an old church, plain, sub- 
stantial, nothing more.” Before we have gone far 
in our examination of the building we shall all say, 
“ There is something more, even very much.” 

It was located where another church had been 
located. If an old church be standing on the 
ground another pilgrim-church occupied previous- 
ly, then an influence, a benediction goes from the 
first to the second, the old living on in the new. 
It is Elijah’s mantle coming upon Elisha. 

Then the church stood on a hill, two streets 
going up to it. 

That seemed fitting in one way, because dignity 
of elevation belonged to it. And yet there was not 
a great rise by way of the street generally taken 
below it — just enough to make pilgrims think that 
going to heaven is going up to heaven, and means 
some work in climbing. 

On the side toward the northeast and the east, 
the hill did fall away abruptly down to a strong, 
brave river that without a sign of weariness ran 
twice a day from the hills to the sea, and then 
would turn and as tirelessly race from the sea to 
the hills. All the way it would sing its courageous 
song, in which eddies and ripplings round the points 


THE SUN DA Y AT HOME . 


45 


and a-purling over stones, made the notes. All the 
way, too, of going and coming, it held in its bright 
bosom, as if a mirror, pictures of the blue sky, 
dotted with little white cloud-tufts, like lambs 
astray, or there would be reflections of ragged 
mountains of storm-cloud for a few minutes, and 
then all the impression would be wiped out by 
drenching rainfalls. So, not far from the church 
there was this river running these races and mirror- 
ing the sky, and down upon the water the echoes of 
the bell would musically descend, calling to the 
men that wore tarpaulins and looked up from their 
spray-dashed fishing-smacks, or the crews of coast- 
ers loaded with lumber from Maine or potatoes 
from Nova Scotia, or it might be a coaler going by 
and bringing anthracite from Pennsylvania. The 
time had been when that bell was heard by seamen 
in ships bringing whale oil from the Arctic, or iron 
and hemp from Russia, or hides and tallow from 
Buenos Ayres, and costly fabrics from India. Time 
makes great changes, and the river ceased to be 
cut by the keels of these vessels. The bell, though, 
kept on calling — faithfully calling. 

Beside the church was a graveyard. It had 
been there many, many years, and how much dust 
left behind by sainted souls was there gathered ! 
Even governors had been buried in that church- 
yard — governors of the olden time who held their 
commission from the King of England himself. 
There was a special tomb treasuring coffins that 


4 6 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


had on their plates real escutcheons, old family 
arms that would make a modern lord roll round his 
eyes in frantic envy. This tomb was called the 
“ Governors’ tomb,” and when opened once, on the 
dusty lids what grim lions and agile unicorns stood 
persistently trying to watch one another in the 
dark ! 

“ Hannah Jane,” Captain Merry’s loyal servant 
for many years, was a very plain-spoken, vigorous 
female. 

“ Dear me !” she exclaimed one day, ‘‘if I 
should go by St. John’s churchyard in the dark I 
should be afraid a whole governor might come 
stalkin’ at me, lions on one side and acurns on 
’tother.” 

The captain was not likely to lose an opportunity 
to put in a word of practical advice. 

“ Now, Hannah Jane,” he said, as he halted one 
moment by her energetic fire in the kitchen, “ you 
should never feel that way. There is no place 
where a person may feel so entirely secure as in a 
cemetery.” 

Hannah made no reply, but maintained a re- 
spectful, submissive silence. 

When the captain had gone she murmured, 
“ That is all right in every-day yards ; but when it 
comes to lions and acurns, that is another and 
very different thing, sure as my name is Hannah 
Jane.” 

But let us go inside the church, built on a hill 


THE SUH DA Y AT HOME . 


47 


and having at its side a resting-place for the dead 
that are watched over by lions and unicorns. 

The church may not have seemed remarkable as 
one went in, but when they went away they would 
take a changed mind with them. There were two 
aisles. Besides the pews of modern pattern in the 
body of the church there were two rows of old-fash- 
ioned wall pews, square, ample, ancient, and lovable 
— blessed old sheep-pens, each a fold, having perhaps 
frisky lambs in it. There were galleries that went 
round three sides of the church — galleries held up 
by stately, fluted columns. In the western gallery 
was the organ, and ranged before it sang a sweet, 
humble, delightful, old-fashioned quartette. Its bass 
singer was Trueman Smith, who during the week 
was clerk in a periodical store and wore a plain, 
snuff-colored suit. On Sundays he blossomed out. 
He was radiant in the brightest, most fashionable 
clothes, and sang a heavenly bass in the St. John’s 
choir. He had a round, beaming boy-face, and 
when dressed in summer-white he looked like a 
cherub. 

“ Nobody in this country can sing ‘ r-r-r-round 
world ’ in the chant like Trueman Smith,” de- 
clared Rob. 

The special glory of the church was the chancel. 
High up on the wall was the frescoed figure of our 
ascending Lord. His face was full of love. His 
outstretched hands were full of blessing. To kneel 
at the chancel-rail and there receive the holy com- 


4 8 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS . 


munion seemed 'to ensure a double blessing under 
those outstretched hands. 

And then what an atmosphere of interest sur- 
rounded the service books in that venerable chan- 
cel ! Queen Caroline, England’s queen, wife 
of George II., gave a prayer-book. She pre- 
sented, too, a silver basin. But to that church 
a singular benefaction was made. A pious soul 
left money, whose interest was to be spent in buy- 
ing bread for the poor. This was to be given away 
each Sunday. So I seem to hear a baker’s cart 
jingling cheerily up to the church-door and leaving 
an armful of loaves that were stacked up on the 
font. But all interesting features cannot be no- 
ticed, and I mention but one more. There were 
the mural tablets. Some good friend of the church 
might die. He might be a commodore or an 
admiral. His coffin, draped with the stars and 
stripes, would be solemnly borne up the aisle, the 
rector saying the words, “ I am the resurrection and 
the life.” Perhaps it was a sea captain, once a 
town boy running about the streets, but grown up 
to face the northeast spray flying across the quar- 
ter-deck ; perhaps it was a judge, who could give 
long, solemn, ponderous opinions from the law’s 
dusty bench. After one’s death might appear on 
the wall a marble tablet, securely set there, saying 
that such and such a one was a good friend of the 
church, stating when he saw the light of this troubled 
world, and finally when there broke upon him the 


THE SUN DA Y AT HOME . 


49 


light of a better one. When the sermon did not 
interest Rob, he would fill up the time reading 
the epitaphs on the walls. 

The sermon did interest him this particular Sun- 
day, and yet it was not the sermon that most deep- 
ly stirred him. It was the'prayer in which our as- 
pirations succeed one another like the rounds of a 
ladder: “Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings 
with Thy most gracious favor, and further us with 
Thy continual help, that in all our works, begun, 
continued, and ended in Thee, we may glorify Thy 
holy nam:, and finally, by Thy mercy, obtain 
everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen.” 

Somehow this prayer took an unusual hold upon 
Rob’s thoughts. 

“ ‘ Works,’ he reflected — ‘ in all our works.' I 
am about to begin a very important work. I am 
going to college.’’ 

He thought along this line, and reached the pray- 
er, “ we may glorify Thy holy name.’’ 

Then this contemplated work ought to be a very 
unselfish one. He must make it as little a burden 
to others as possible ; and he came to a sudden 
halt. What was the matter ? 

Rob’s going to Cambridge seemed to have be- 
come a family matter. The captain expected to 
take a house there. , It seemed at one time as if 
Maurice Kennard and the Rev. Mr. Raymond, who 
both graduated at Harvard and were Captain Mer- 


5 ° 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


ry’s sons-in-law, were going again. The captain 
“ graduated,” he had sometimes said, “ at the fore- 
top of the Ann Parry” an old whaler, but he 
was now about to enter Harvard and graduate at 
the proper place. Hannah Jane and her husband, 
Jack Prince, the hired man, acted as if they were 
going. One day Rob said to the old cat, “ You 
going to Harvard, Pussy ?” 

“ Maow !” said Pussy, which reply was taken as 
the cat-word for “ yes.” 

This feeling in the Merry house had a foundation. 

The captain had said, “ I don’t know why it 
would not be a good idea to hire a house in Cam- 
bridge and occupy it during Rob’s stay. It will 
make a home for the boy.” 

Rob was a big home boy — a character I admire. 

And yet he knew it was not exactly convenient 
for his father. 

Indeed, he had heard the captain say to Grace, 
who, with her husband, Maurice Kennard, lived 
with her father, “ Grace, I am sorry, but it turns 
out in the end that you and Maurice will have 
to stay here, as his law business will keep him 
in town. It is true I — I — cannot well afford to keep 
up a house in Cambridge ; but life is short, and 
why not lay out a little money for our friends while 
with them ?” 

Grace said nothing. She knew that in her fa- 
ther’s stay in Cambridge there would be a large 
outlay of money that he would badly miss. 


THE SUNDAY AT HOME. 51 

Rob in church thought out this plan of a second 
home at Cambridge. “ I don’t believe father ought 
really to keep up another house.” Something said 
to him, “ Put it this way : Ought you to let him 
afford it ? Why do you encourage it ? Why don’t 
you go off and look after yourself ?” 

“ Ahem !” ejaculated Rob vigorously. 

It was a part of the service where responses were 
in order, but none of this kind. 

His father looked at him solicitously. 

“ Ahem !” exclaimed Rob again, but in an un- 
conscious mood. 

“ Not a cold, is it?” whispered Captain Merry. 
“ Take this.” 

He slipped a big red peppermint into Rob’s 
hand. 

Rob took it, but he could not have told whether 
it were made of sugar or wood. He could not 
have said what he did with it. He afterward found 
a crushed mass of red sugar down in one of 
his stockings, and he wondered where it came 
from. 

During the service Rob’s thoughts were not on 
the service. Sometimes in his younger days, when 
the sermon was dull, he would make a calculation 
how many letters might be on one of the mural 
tablets honoring those old pillars of the church ; 
or, taking the loaves of bread on the marble font, 
he would calculate, allowing so many slices to a 
loaf, into how many slices he could cut that entire 


5 2 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


quantity of the staff of life. How long a procession 
of small hungry boys moving off from the church, 
each receiving a slice, could be comfortably stocked ? 
To-day he was thinking of something else. Here 
was a big boy, a young man, urging his father to 
go to Cambridge to give him slices of bread and a 
comfortable bed, and take care of him there. 
Wasn’t that selfish ? 

In his absorbing meditations he appeared to Cap- 
tain Merry as one asleep. 

“ Give Rob a little poke, my dear,” the captain 
whispered to Grace, for he expected to see Rob 
make a nod profound as an Atlantic abyss. 

Rob opened his eyes promptly to show that he 
was not asleep, and gave a good-natured smile as 
if saying, ” I am only thinking.” 

He kept on thinking. 

Selfish, was he ? 

What is selfishness ? 

What is it to do all things for the glory of God ? 
What is a life in which all things are ” begun, con- 
tinued, and ended” in God? How do you start 
and how do you continue it ? That is a very high, 
an ideal life. Where does one get strength for it ? 
“ That is it,” continued Rob in his thoughts — 
“ strength for it ! You want sustaining power. 
You want to keep it up. There are lots of things 
that it is easy to begin, but it is another matter to 
continue them and then to end them well. I — I — I 
don’t know what to do about it.” 


THE SUNDA Y AT HOME. 


53 


Rob went from the old church still thinking upon 
the subject. 

At dinner he did not say very much. This was 
all the more noticeable because Rob had a flow of 
spirits, abundant, incessant. 

“ Rob,” said his father after dinner, putting his 
arm affectionately about his son, “ I would not be 
depressed by the thought of leaving home.” 

*‘ Oh, no, father !” 

They were going through a little entry, at the end 
of which was a window that the sun had a great 
fancy for, and threw handfuls of gold that way. 
It was a window full of plants. It was a favorite 
place, and especially for the captain. Rob’s moth- 
er used to care for the plants. It seemed as if they 
knew her, and little stems would struggle so hard 
to make a blossom, all to please her, when for other 
folks on the street they would do very little. Now 
that she was gone, the place was all the dearer. 
Plants yet did so well there it seemed as if she 
came back at times to care for them. Near this 
window the captain halted. 

” Rob, dear,” he said, ” I wish you were going 
to be confirmed at the church before going away — 
I mean, take an open stand as one given to a Chris- 
tian life.” 

“ Do you, father ?” 

The captain nodded his head. 

It was a sudden expression of interest in Rob’s 
spiritual movements, but the feeling was not sud- 


54 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


den. Under the captain’s animation, vivacity, fun, 
his children knew there was a seriousness of mood 
all the time. He might give an abrupt turn to a 
conversation and this underflow of seriousness come 
to the surface. His children understood him. “ I 
— I know, father,” Rob now said — “ I suppose I 
ought.” 

Yes, he knew he ought, openly, before all, to 
take a stand as one resolved to serve God. He 
needed the blessing going with that act. 

Rob passed into the garden. 

This began in front of the house, rambled along 
on either side of it, and then stretched back of it 
several hundred feet. 

It was a most beloved while antique garden. 
There were beds bordered in the ancient way with 
box, of which Rob’s grandfather had been very 
fond. 

There were two old summer-houses, looking like 
poke-bonnets pinned down to the ground. In one 
corner there were bee-hives, and hollyhocks all 
about them in deep rows, the tall shoots set about 
with sweet faces of pink, and white, and scarlet, and 
deep crimson, that the bees were continually falling 
in love with. The hollyhocks were not afraid of 
the bees, for these sheathed their stings when plung- 
ing into the sweets in every flower-cup. 

Rob went down to the foot of the garden and 
leaned against a favorite old apple-tree, at whose 
foot was a ditch. 


THE SUNDA Y AT HOME. 


55 


The captain called this “ a brook.” 

Beyond the garden was a marsh, and beyond the 
marsh was the South Mill Pond, and beyond the 
South Mill Pond was the river, and beyond the 
river was the ocean. 

In the captain’s thoughts the brook made a con- 
nection between his present life and that great sea 
which he once sailed. In spring there was sure to 
be a little water in the brook, and in days of wild 
storm the ocean would arouse all its energy and 
marshal deep tides that would come charging upon 
the land as if to conquer it, making a great fuss in 
the river, then swelling into the mill-pond, and up 
the marsh ditches, finally forcing a small rush of 
water up this brook, as if to capture the Merry 
garden and take the captain out to sea, where he 
belonged. The captain would put on an old tar- 
paulin and a big storm coat, and stalk down into 
the garden, and would stand by the brook, watch- 
ing it and laughing in a jolly way. 

Once in July somebody called it “ a dry drain,” 
and said it “ led nowhere.” 

That rather nettled the captain. 

“ Dry ?” he said. “ You think so, and leads no- 
where ?’ ’ 

He directed Jack Prince to pour tub after tub of 
water into “ the dry drain,” and a chip marked 
“ M” he launched on the stream. 

Then he led the visitor out on the marsh, and 
gave him a long, hard tramp, to show that the chip 


5 * 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


might be expected to get to the pond, and of course 
the pond would get to the river, and the river to 
the ocean. The tired visitor was sorry enough for 
his indiscretion. 

Rob leaned against the apple-tree and looked at 
the brook. 

He was going from home — going to college, and 
then going where ? 

Sometimes when there was water in the brook 
Rob would launch a little fleet of chips and follow 
them out into the marsh. 

He was just a boat — a chip set adrift. 

What did the prayer say ? 

“ Direct us, O Lord, in all our goings — no, 
doings.” 

“ Well,” soliloquized Rob, “ they are the same, 
doing and going, and they are all to be unselfish, 
not to keep just ourselves in mind, but somebody 
else — on earth our neighbor and in heaven God. 
If the little chip started off well that I might have 
put in the brook, it might aim well for a time and 
then strike a snag in the marsh. It is not an easy 
thing to get to the sea, is it ? Now, I am going to 
Cambridge, and then going — where ? I — I — need 
to be directed, don’t I ? Oh, how much I need 
help ! I never felt so before. I do feel it strongly 
to-day. What was it father did for me once out on 
the marsh ? Oh, I remember it now !” 

When Rob was a little fellow, he was with his fa- 
ther out on the marsh. He tried but failed to spring 


THE SUNDA Y AT HOME. 


57 


across a ditch, and the captain said in his kind, 
ready way, “ Rob, you just let me carry you — there 
— there — so, put your arms round my neck.” He 
bore Rob forward so gently that Rob could but 
wish it were a long carrying. 

“ Thank you, father,” said Rob. 

“I’m very glad to do it for you,” replied the 
captain. 

He wished his father would do a like favor now — 
lift him, help him into a new and better life. 

“ Why not let your Heavenly Father doit ?” was 
a, prompting within. “ What is religion but let- 
ting God do for us ? You can do nothing without 
Him. Let God take care of you, keep you, direct 
you. He longs to do it.” 

“ I am so unworthy. I — I — am not good enough. 
Oh, I don’t know what I ought to do !” 

** Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden” were words that flashed into his mind, and 
what did he see ? It seemed as if he were looking 
into the old church on the hill, and there, high 
above the chancel, he saw on the wall the out- 
stretched hands of Christ — hands of welcome, hands 
of help, hands of blessing. 

“ That’s my Saviour,” he murmured. 

He almost ran to his room. 

He opened the Bible his mother had given him. 
From his window he could see the cemetery, under 
one of whose stones rested her dust. He knew she 
would like to have him open the Bible she gave him. 


58 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


‘ 4 Read, Rob, ’ ’ she seemed to be saying. He search- 
ed for the Saviour’s invitation. He read it like one 
who is lost and in the thickening shadows of the 
evening looks up to the guide-board, and eagerly, 
carefully' reads. 

He fell upon his knees. 

Rob never forgot the impressions of that hour, 
when he went into the presence of God as never 
before and touched Him. God was all about him, 
and Rob touched Him. 

It is the secret of all our permanent improve- 
ment. 

In our ignorance we must touch His wisdom. 

In our weakness before duty we must touch His 
strength. 

In sorrow for sin we must feel the touch of His 
forgiving hands. 

Before, it had seemed to Rob as if those hands 
were above him, like the outstretched hands of 
Jesus on the chancel wall ; now they came down 
and rested on him. 

When he met his father he said, “ It is all decid- 
ed, father. I have made up my mind, and I will 
do as you say. And I want to tell you of some- 
thing else. I — I — don’t want you to break up your 
home when I go away. That is selfish. I have 
decided that too.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


TAKING A STAND. 

R OB MERRY was pacing the floor of his room 
at Harvard. It was a cosy student-room. 
There were on the walls several certificates of grad- 
uation from various schools, declaring at once the 
kind of tenants of the room, and this student 
feature was emphasized by several text-books lying 
open on the table. There was a fire of brilliant coals 
in a grate steadily sending out a bright, warm wel- 
come to visitors, but Rob had none. He had a 
room-mate, and at the same time he had none. The 
nominal mate was John Kennard, a relative of 
Maurice Kennard ; but while a member of the 
Senior Class, he was just now absent in Europe. 
There were two bookcases in the room, and the 
well-filled shelves emphasized the literary character 
of the place. There were several canes leaning 
against opposite corners, and Rob might have 
found one convenient in the short but lengthening 
walk he was now taking. There was in the room 
a lounge, about which birds on green and white 
wings of chintz were continually hovering. There 
was a thickly, softly cushioned window-seat. There 
were three very comfortable-looking chairs, all fac- 


6o 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


ing Rob, and the air of each chair was, “ Why 
don’t you sit down ?” Rob, however, kept on 
walking. He was busily thinking. He had re- 
ceived two invitations for the evening. One was 
to attend a meeting of St. Paul’s Society. The 
second was a welcome to a student’s room outside 
the college yard, on Harvard Street, to join in a 
little festivity. 

“ A little festivity !” soliloquized Rob. “ I 
know what that is. The fellow inviting me said 
some of my class would be there for a little festiv- 
ity, and ‘ the size of it would be a three-foot punch- 
bowl.’ ‘ But, Merry,’ he said, ‘ don’t think you 
must imbibe. We like you and want to see you 
with us whether you take anything or not. Come 
along ! That is a good boy ! ’ That is just about 
the way he put it.” 

It is no wonder that a young fellow should be 
popular who had Rob’s characteristics. The hard 
students, “ the grinds,” liked him because he gave 
good attention to his books. Over at the gym- 
nasium he showed such “ a muscular develop- 
ment,” and was so good at jumping, swinging, 
running, that the strictly athletic element felt very 
friendly. A fellow that had great love for any- 
thing human, and found it difficult to hate any- 
body, was liked by the most pronounced “ sports.” 
They thought him sympathetic and tolerant and 
“ not down on a feller because he would have a 
good time.” 


TAKING' A STAND. 


61 

To-night the fellow that wished everybody well 
must choose between two sets, each with its posi- 
tive peculiarities— the men at the St. Paul’s Society 
meeting and those rollicking around “ a three-foot 
punch-bowl.” 

Which invitation would he accept ? He was 
arguing the matter while he walked the floor. 

There seemed to be two beings within him tak- 
ing part in an argument going on fiercely. 

“ Now listen to me,” said Being Number One. 
“You Want to be an ‘ all-round man * of course, and 
you don’t want to be just a student — a grind, but 
you want to go out into society and make friends and 
have a good time with them, and they will help you 
along in after life. Y ou appreciate this, young man ?’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Of course you appreciate that, ’ ’ remarked Being 
Number Two, “ and you appreciate something 
else. If you go down to the punch-bowl set, it is 
true they will not insist on your drinking, but they 
rather expect it, and you may find it hard to re- 
fuse — ” 

“ Guess Rob Merry knows how to say no. You 
need not interfere with your moral remarks,” 
testily answered Being Number One. ” He can 
take a stand down there.” 

“ He had better take a stand up here,” said Being 
Number Two. 

“ How are you going to take a stand when there 
is no enemy round ?” sneeringly asked Being Num- 
ber One. 


62 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Then you admit that an enemy is down there ?” 

“ I admit nothing to you. I don’t wish to have 
anything to do with you." 

This last was said by Being Number One with 
an air of ruffled dignity, like a nettled turkey strut- 
ting round. 

“ I think you will have to admit this : that when 
there is a prospect of temptation, the better way 
is to fight the enemy at a distance before you get 
into the thick of the temptation,” replied Being 
Number Two. 

“ Oh, there you are again with your moral re- 
marks ! I purpose to do no more talking with you. 
If Robert Merry, of Harvard and of the Freshman 
Class, is a manly fellow, he will go his own way 
and decide this matter without your help. I am 
done, or at least done withj^,” said Being Num- 
ber One. 

The voices of both died away, and for an evident 
reason, that Rob Merry was just about closing the 
door on further debate. A new thought had come 
to him. He was one who liked to please people 
and enjoy their good opinion. Is not that a com- 
mendable trait ? may be asked. A man, that he 
may enjoy the good opinion of his neighbors, may 
therefore take the greater interest in caring for his 
grounds and his house. He will put them into 
better dress, and himself also. Is not that regard 
for others’ opinion to be encouraged ? Yes, always, 
if it mean no sympathy with the wrong views and 


TAKING A STANK. 


6 3 


methods of others — if it mean no loss of self-re- 
spect. One needs to keep the eyes of his good 
judgment and conscience open, and not blindly fol- 
low others for the sake of their approbation. At 
home they would sometimes laugh at Rob. It 
might be only a poor peddler with a poverty-struck 
pack, and Rob would have some encouraging word 
for him, that he might feel better than his vocation. 

In the present instance of debate in Rob’s room 
at college, Being Number One slyly stole up to the 
door of Rob’s favor and tried to effect an entrance 
by way of this regard for the kindly opinion of 
others, and remarked, “ It seems to me that you 
are very selfish, and don’t regard the pleasure of 
others ; for two young fellows, room-mates, have 
gone to some trouble in this thing, and I know it 
will please them if you would go down, say, a little 
while.” 

“ Oh, oh ! I had not thought of that,” reflected 
Rob. 

” Just a little while, long enough to make them 
feel that you appreciate their hospitality. Why, 
you are not afraid ?” 

Ah, the cunning disputant ! 

He was pressing now with new force against the 
door. Rob had much courage, and to intimate 
that he was afraid to do a thing was likely to de- 
termine him to do it. In younger days his sisters 
would take advantage of it. 

“ Now, Rob,” they would say, when he was dis- 


6 4 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


inclined to do a thing they desired — “ now you are 
not afraid to do it ?” 

“ Afraid ?” he would say. “We will see about 
that.” 

Off he would rush to do the thing desired. 

He now replied, “ Afraid to go down to that 
room on Harvard Street ? Afraid ? We will see, 
sir !” 

It is a foolish way to put one’s head between the 
lion’s jaws to show that a person is not afraid ; 
but it is quite often done. 

Being Number Two mildly attempted a sugges- 
tion of caution, but Rob was on his resistless way 
down the steps of old Holworthy, in one of whose 
nests he had his college-home. 

It was a chilly night, and the college yard had 
an unsympathetic, almost unfriendly, strange look. 
It was true the old buildings were in their places — 
Hollis, Holworthy, Stoughton, and others — and 
they flashed lights of friendly recognition over to 
the newer buildings, like Thayer and University. 

The aspect was that of the old yard at night, and 
was familiar and hospitable enough, but the sea- 
son was autumn, and that gave to things a chilli- 
ness and unfriendliness. The wind kept up a 
mournful clatter amid the withered leaves over- 
head, and the trees rose up like a company of 
homeless old pilgrims that had got into the yard, 
and they were cold and shivering, and made in the 
wind a dismal lamentation over this inhospitable ex- 


TAKING A STAND. 


6 5 


posure to the night. Rob hurried through the yard, 
and was nearing one of the gateways when suddenly 
the wind brought to him the words, “ Don’t play 
with the lion — ha ! ha !” 

He stopped. 

He thought of a mountain away up in New 
Hampshire. 

Looking off, it seemed as if he saw against the 
cold, clear starlight the outlines of an old face, 
sharp, clear-cut, gazing down upon the world in a 
most positive, defiant way. 

“ The Old Man of the Mountain !” murmured 
Rob. 

Having looked up, he now looked toward the 
quarter from which had proceeded the advice, so 
pertinent at the present time. He heard a step ap- 
proaching him. Then he saw a form. Rob was 
near a lamp-post, and as the person came into the 
circle of light about it Rob recognized him, and he 
recognized Rob. As classmates they had met be- 
fore. 

“ Merry, that you ?” 

“ Yes ; and I see it is you, Cargrove. Were you 
out there at the gate just now ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And wasn’t that a fellow by the name of 
Plumperty ?” 

” Why, yes ; do you know him ? How could 
you tell him ?” 

“ I heard him say, ‘ Don’t play with the lion.’ ” 


66 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Oh ! Why should that indicate Plumperty ?” 

“ He knows well enough. How is it he is round 
here in Cambridge ?” 

“ His headquarters are in Boston, and he is out 
here occasionally. Perhaps he was giving me ad- 
vice, but he doesn’t use it himself. That, though, 
has nothing to do with my errand, for I was com- 
ing up to your room. Merry, you are going down 
to Bingham’s, on Harvard Street — Tom Bingham’s ? 
He rooms with Knight, you know, and Knight 
wants you. That was my errand.” 

“ I was going — ” here Rob looked up and saw 
just above a corner of the building known as 
” Matthews” that strange, stern, set, weird moun- 
tain profile again — “ but please excuse me to Bing- 
ham and Knight.” 

“ But you are not going anywhere else ?” 

“ Yes ; to a meeting of St. Paul’s Society.” 

“ Fiddlesticks on the society ! Say, Merry, you 
are not too good for them down there, are you ? 
For what is to pay ? You are not afraid of Bing- 
ham’s punch-bowl ?” 

“ I don’t think I am afraid,” said Rob, instinc- 
tively bristling at this challenge. 

“ Why don’t you go, then ?” 

“ I have two ways in which to spend the evening, 
and of the two, frankly, I think the meeting of the 
St. Paul’s Society is better.” 

“ Humph !” said Cargrove sneeringly — “humph ! 
Well, Merry, do as you think best ; but I believe 


TAKING A STANK. 67 

in seeing the world — Oh, you are going ? Good- 
night. ” 

“ Good-night.” 

Cargrove watched Rob’s martial figure moving 
off. 

He called out sarcastically, “ Don’t play with the 
lion !” 

“ I shan’t to-night anyway,” replied Rob good- 
naturedly. “ The menagerie is not up this 
way.” 

“ Nonsense !” muttered Cargrove as he strode 
away. “ The boy does not know what a lot of 
pleasure there is in life. I’m not afraid of it.” 

He went down Harvard Street resolutely to lay 
his head between the lion’s jaws. 

Cargrove was not vicious. 

He was thoughtless, reckless, but his extrava- 
gance was not ill-tempered. He was not stingy 
and mean, but generous ; yet his thoughtlessness 
sometimes had the same effect as meanness. He 
was not heartless, but his exuberant flow of animal 
spirits and his love of fun made him appear as if 
lacking in heart. While his inquisitiveness and 
idea of the world as a big curiosity shop, a museum, 
a pleasure park, moved him to knock at every door 
and try every path, he did not mean to go far be- 
hind the door or to the end of every path. Nobody 
has that intention when starting out to try the un- 
known world. After starting they may become 
utterly reckless, but they are not when they begin. 


68 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


A favorite word with Sibley Cargrove was “ sam- 
ple.” He wished to sample things. 

He had an idea that “ the sampling of things” 
would do no harm, and, on the other hand, it would 
make him somehow a bigger man. 

“ I shall measure more round the waist,” said 
Cargrove. 

“ Round the head” ought to have been his aim. 
Girth of body may be suspicious. 

“Yes, I must sample things — sample, that is it 
ezackly , boys,” Sibley Cargrove would often say. 

He had uneasy blue eyes, forever rolling round, 
as if on the lookout for some new thing. His hair 
in front he wore in a kind of wall, so that his locks 
had a look of continual rising up, as if he were 
startled by some kind of a discovery. He had a 
prominent, pointed nose that had a look of break- 
ing — forcing its way into an unknown something. 
Add to this a bland, pleased smile, as if at the dis- 
covery of a new thing or in anticipation of it. 

This desire to investigate, to try the unknown, 
may be a most excellent quality ; it may be the 
best gift that could be made to a man. Columbus 
had it, the Cabots, John Smith, all the old naviga- 
tors. America was the result of a man’s curiosity. 
The desire to find and know is not only the trum- 
pet-peal sending out the explorer, but may be 
the triumphant note heralding a new day, to the 
astronomer also, the inventor, the thinker in his 
lonely study, working long and late. 


T A KING A STAND. 


69 


Like Rob’s desire to please people, Sibley Car- 
grove’s wish and purpose to know needed to be bal- 
anced by excellent judgment, and Sibley was fated 
to learn this by an unpleasant experience. It was 
one of the sad things he did not wish to know, but 
must know. 

At home Sibley was labelled by many in the 
neighborhood 4 ' a scamp,” 44 a disgrace, ” and his con- 
duct would be called a 44 burnin’ shame,” for people 
judged his acts by their consequences — a very natu- 
ral judgment. An inspection that could have 
reached his motives, his intentions, would not have 
given him so harsh a name. The young man with 
the rolling, inquisitive blue eyes, the startling bank 
of hair, the smile of expectation, of satisfaction 
over some discovery, the nose like a breaking-out 
plough in a snowed-under track, and in addition to 
these features having the disposition to 44 sample” 
and find out, started for the gathering on Harvard 
Street. 

44 I am ready for them — ha ! ha !” chuckled Sib- 
ley. 

They were ready for Sibley. 

The lion’s jaws were preparing a reception, a 
special welcome for him. They intended to be 
ready for Rob Merry also. It was a group of 
young men, among whom the two hosts, Tom Bing- 
ham and his room-mate, Sam Knight, were the 
most prominent. They were not malicious posi- 
tively and deliberately. They were very much like 


70 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


Sibley Cargrove — fond of fun, thoughtless, and 
without regard for consequences. They wanted to 
sample the unknown world of pleasure, try every 
path, put their heads into every hole, including the 
lion’s mouth. Of course each one meant to pull 
his head out very quick. 

Tom was a chatty, nervous speaker, but his 
room-mate, Sam, was one who never hurried. 

“ Now, boys, you know what the programme 
is ?” 

“ No, Tom ; tell us.” 

“ We are going to have company — two freshmen 
— men of our class — nice fellers. One of them 
you must have picked out. Tall somewhat, straight 
up and down, like a lamp-post — straight, I mean. 
Looks dignified, but he isn’t a bit stiff — no, sir ! 
Glad to meet everybody — one of that kind. Honest 
— that’s the word — trusty — won’t go back on you. 
The feller to pull you out of a scrape.” 

“ Ha ! ha !” said a fat young man they called 
Squeezy ; “ he’s the chap we may want to-night.” 

“ But there are two of them,” resumed Tom. 
“ Cargrove is the other. He’s the sport for you — 
a good feller. He wants to see the world — ” 

“ We will proceed to demonstrate to him to-night 
that there is a world,” said Sam in his deliberate, 
almost drawling way ; “ and Thomas, friends of my 
youth, I will now bring out that bowl of finely 
flavored punch. We will have it in readiness for 
that Merry individual, and we will make him mer- 


TAKING A STAND. 


71 


rier before we are through with him ; and then if he 
is such a proficient in extricating people from dis- 
agreeable surroundings — that is, in familiar lan- 
guage, * scrapes ’ — we will give him an oppor- 
tunity, it may be, to extricate us. As for that 
young individual, Cargrove, what would you say of 
him, Thomas, my beloved ?” 

“ Oh, he — he is right after everything. His nose 
looks as if it were just going through something. 
Hair brushed up. It looks like a haystack. He 
has a rollicking eye. Good boy, generous — likes 
fun — not stingy — he will pay all the bills. Has a 
perpetual grin on his face — has — ” 

There was a knock at the door. 

“ Come in !” shouted Tom, and in walked “ the 
perpetual grin” mounted on two legs. 

His eyes flashed with delight, and he bowed to 
right and left. 

“ Mr. Cargrove, gentlemen,” cried Tom. 

He was greeted with a roar of welcome. 

“But where is our acquaintance, Mr. Merry?” 
inquired Sam. 

“ Oh, he wished to be excused.” 

There was a murmur of disappointment. 

“ Couldn’t he come ?” asked Tom. 

“ He is going to St. Paul’s Society, whatever 
it is,” said Sibley. 

“ Can’t inform you, Mr. Cargrove — too deep a 
society for me. However, glad to see you. Sit 
down. Make yourself at home.” 


72 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


Sibley’s eyes were rolling round the room, tak- 
ing in everything. 

“ My friend, Mr. Cargrove,” said Sam solemn- 
ly, “ we were just about to partake of this carefully 
prepared fluid. I suppose you will not object to a 
glass of punch ?” 

Sibley did not object. He did not know any- 
thing about it from actual use, but he could not see 
why he should not sample this untried element. 
He had heard there might be danger in using it., 
but why should he not find out the truth or the 
falsity of it by a personal and present “samp- 
ling” ? 

He recalled the warning which Plumperty had 
repeated as a joke — “ Don’t play with the lion !” — 
and he concluded to sport awhile, anyway, with 
the beast. 

“ A glass for Mr. Cargrove, our friend and class- 
mate !” called out Sam oracularly, “ whom w'e hope 
to know better. And we will all take a glass — 
a big one is better than a little one — and we will 
drink to the health of Mr. Cargrove !” 

This was received with much enthusiasm. Sib- 
ley cordially reciprocated, and, smiling his broad- 
est smile, walked into the lion’s jaws. 

In the course of the evening the merriment, while 
as uproarious as before, was not so intelligent. 
Words were miscalled. The toasting was not all 
correct. There was a twisting of letters. 

It was “ Mister Dorgrove” who “ roasted” “ Mis- 


TAKING A STANK. 


73 


ter Jingham,” and " Mister Chingham” “ boosted” 
“ Mister Cowboy.” 

The night went by. The stars climbed higher 
and higher. The clock on Harvard Square called 
out that it was midnight when the company sepa- 
rated. 

Rob’s evening passed very differently. 

The St. Paul men were glad to see him at their 
little gathering for a quiet service. “ We don’t 
get many out,” one of the society told him, “ but 
those who come help us.” 

” It has helped me,” replied Rob. 

It took him in thought to the church at home, 
and looking up he saw the Saviour’s outstretched 
hands on the chancel wall. When he was return- 
ing to his room and crossing the college yard, he 
saw a form halting under a tree — somebody whose 
figure belonged to no student at Harvard. It was 
a sort of bulky globe set on two stout barrels, and 
turned up to the lamplight was as honest, frank, 
trustworthy a face as ever looked through specta- 
cles, but it was a bewildered face. It was some 
one in perplexity. 

“ I know that man,” declared Rob. 

The next moment, holding both hands out, he 
was going up to the bewildered face exclaiming, 
“ Mr. Bushel, I believe ! I am so glad to see you !” 

The face looked more bewildered. It was like 
the moon going into a cloud. 

“ You don’t know me — Robert Merry, who once 


74 


TPVO COLLEGE BOYS. 


was camping out near your place, and you woke us 
up sleeping in a wagon ?” 

The moon’s face cleared at once — it actually 
shone. 

“ Why, bless me ! Sure as I’m Bithar Bushel, I 
do b’lieve it’s the very same boy, Robert ! Yes, it 
is Robert Merry, Cap’n Merry’s boy, and — how — ” 
here Bithar began to shake hands, covering Rob’s 
with his broad palms — “how — how — do — ye — 
do ?” 

Rob wondered if Bithar had made a mistake, and 
thought, in his thirst, that Rob was a pump in the 
college yard. 

“ There ! I am glad to see ye, Robert.” Here 
he said solemnly, looking Rob directly and intent- 
ly in the face, “ And how’s your pa, and sister, 
and—” 

“ Oh, all very well ! But, Mr. Bushel, come up 
in my room — do.” 

“ I’m obleeged to ye, and I guess I will, and I’ll 
tell you my errant.” 

Rob was not able to reach his room at a bound. 
He was obliged to go up several flights of stairs. 
At the end of the second flight he missed Bithar. 
He went down to the next story, and there was 
Bithar, his big boy-face in such distress. 

“ Them stairs jest beat the Dutch ! Jest winded 
me. Ain’t got no more of ’em, have ye ?” 

“ Yes, but we’re getting along.” 

“ Gittin’ along ! That gives me a tech of 


TAKING A STAND. 


75 


courage,” and up rolled the globe mounted on its 
two barrels. 

“ Make yourself at home.” 

“ Egg — zackly ! I’ll jest rest awhile. It looks 
real home-like.” 

“ I want you to sit down, please ; and do you 
like tea ?” 

“You have a teapot handy ?” 

” Right on hand. I’ll make you a cup. We 
boys make it.” 

“ Thank ye.” 

Rob brought forward a little table, a tea-set, a 
dish of crackers, and setting a pretty little Japan- 
ese teapot on the coals, soon poured out a cup of 
fragrant tea. 

” How handy you are ! It’s quite refreshin’ be- 
fore I go to Boston to find a stoppin’-place. I 
thought they had one in Cambridge, and that’s 
what I was lookin’ round for, but it didn’t turn up. 
I thought Cambridge was a place where you had 
everything handy, like that cup of tea, within arm’s 
reach.” 

” Mr. Bushel, why won’t you stop with me ? I 
have two beds, for my room-mate is in Europe, and 
I can make you very comfortable.” 

“ Now that’s handy, sartin. You are very kind, 
and I will, thank ye.” 

The old farmer enjoyed his cup of tea and bis- 
cuit, and then he told Rob if he would excuse him 
he would “ turn in.” 


76 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ You — you haven’t a Bible handy ; but of course 
you have. Some folks have — most have — every- 
thing handy but that.” 

“ Here is one. Hadn’t we better have prayers 
together ?” 

“ Now I like that.” 

“You lead, please.” 

In a slow, solemn, deep, not unmusical voice, mak- 
ing Rob think of a wind that was murmuring 
through the pines of the Pemigewassett valley, 
Bithar read the psalm, “ Bless the Lord, O my soul, 
and forget not all His benefits.” 

Then like a tired child talking with his father 
before he lay down to sleep, Bithar Bushel com- 
mended Rob and all beneath the roof “ pursuin’ 
their studies to the Divine care.” 

Five minutes after, when Rob looked at Bithar’s 
bed, there was a tired but peaceful big boy-face 
turned up from the bed of the man now in Europe. 
Attending this gentle slumber, though, was a very 
forcible snore. 

After going to bed Rob lay awake for some time. 

“ Bithar Bushel in my chum’s bed ! I can’t real- 
ize that,” Rob told himself. 

There was the snore, though. 

” I wonder what he is here for? He didn’t tell 
me,” thought Rob. 

He tried to recall all his conversation after meet- 
ing Bithar. The farmer had said, “ I hope I’m not 
intrudin’ ?” 


TAKING A STAND. 


77 


“ Oh, no,” Rob told him ; “ I have got through 
my engagements for the evening.” 

“ Ben to a leetle lively time, what you college 
chaps have sometimes ?” 

“ Oh, it was only a meeting of St. Paul’s So- 
ciety !” 

“St. Paul? Then ’twas a good meetin’. Rob, 
I tell ye ” — here Bithar brought a big, heavy hand 
down on Rob’s back, threatening to break Rob’s 
spinal column — “ I tell ye, Rob, I am glad to hear 
that. It is what kind of company a man keeps 
that settles all right a lot of things. And a young 
man goin’ into a new place will soon determine 
things by the company he keeps. As he starts, so 
he will fetch up. It is of great importance that we 
make good companions. Don’t forgit it.” 

Rob as he lay awake recalled all these things. 

Hark ! Bithar was worrying about something, 
but Rob soon heard that snore again. He now knew 
the old man was at ease, and Rob began to be 
drowsy. He went to sleep, but he was soon awak- 
ened. There was a light shining into his retreat. 
Bithar’s couch was empty. Rob sprang out of 
bed. Looking into his study quarters he saw 
Bithar in his night-dress pushing toward the win- 
dows, hitting several pieces of furniture on the 
way. 

“ What — what is the matter, Mr. Bushel ? Can 
I help you ?” 

“ I was a grain uneasy. I happened to be awake. 


78 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


and jest thought of fire, and considerin’ I was so 
high up and the stairs might be blocked, I was 
wonderin’ how I could git down. Is there a spout 
round, where one could jest let himself down ?” 

“ Oh, you need not go down that way, for I have 
a line here — see !” 

Rob had heard his father say, “ Sometimes it 
isn’t best to stop to argue with a man’s fears to 
prove that they are groundless, but show him a 
way out of any danger. ’ ’ Rob opened a closet door 
and showed a coil of rope on the floor. He wanted 
a line to fasten a boat he had hired, and the store- 
keeper of whom it had been ordered sent much too 
long a piece. 

“ Oh, I see ! That’s good. You’ll ’scuse me, 
but I got uneasy a-thinkin’, Rob.” 

Back into his bed Bithar crawled, and the light 
was put out. Soon Rob heard the snore again, and 
then he noticed periods of uneasiness. 

“ I wonder what is on his mind ? I wonder, too, 
what he is here for anyway ?” thought Rob. 

The snore was in operation again, and Rob went 
to sleep. 

Again he was awakened. 

There was a light about his bed. 

Bithar’s bed was empty. 

Rob rushed out into his study He saw no one. 
He rushed to the window. Had Bithar swung out 
a line ? Rob felt carefully for it. 

‘ ‘ What a fool I am ! Let me look in the closet. ’ ’ 


TAKING A STAND. 


79 


The line was in its place. 

Then Rob looked for Bithar’s hat. 

It was not on the hook where it had been hung, 
nor could it be found anywhere ! 

“ Now, that old fellow has gone out ! I must 
hunt him up,” thought Rob, rushing for his 
clothes. “ How do I know but he walks round in 
his sleep ! He may be promenading round the 
yard or on top of the roof for all that I know. 
Hurry ! What time is it ?” 

It was after twelve. 

He dressed and went down into the yard. He 
met several students hurrying to their rooms. 

“ Have you seen a fat man in the yard ?” he 
asked each one. 

” Not unless you are fat,” one student told 
him. 

Then he went to one of the entrances to the 
yard. He looked out into Harvard Square. A 
street-car was coming from Boston, and it made a 
hollow, lonely sound in the night. 

He looked back into the yard. 

He heard a noise. 

What was that mass of something near a big 
bush ? 

Rob went toward it. 

The mass of something resolved itself into two 
forms. One was short and stout and trying to lug 
along a body of slender build. 

“ That fat man can’t be Bithar,” thought Rob. 


8o 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


It was Bithar, panting, groaning, and lugging 
along — whom ? 

Rob was now next to him. 

“ It can’t be Sibley Cargrove !” thought Rob. 

It was Sibley Cargrove. 

“ Let me help, Mr. Bushel, for I can handle him,” 
said Rob. 

“ Oh, dear !” groaned Bithar. It was his only 
reply. 

Rob was stronger than most young men of his 
age. He lifted Sibley toward a lamp-post and 
stood him there as if he were a bag of meal leaning 
against a miller’s door. Then he stooped, took 
the bag of meal on his back, and moved toward 
his college, Sibley making some incoherent re- 
mark. 

” Come, Mr. Bushel !” 

“ Oh, dear !” groaned Bithar, who seemed help- 
less as a baby, and Rob permitted the helplessness. 
At times he fluttered about Rob as if to help him, 
but Rob would ejaculate, “ No, no ! I can handle 
him this way. It’s not far.” 

When he reached the old dormitory, Rob stood 
his load against the wall, as the miller his bag by 
his mill door. Sibley was muttering something no- 
body could understand. 

“ Now, Mr. Bushel, you let me get my breath, 
and I’ll tackle him and get him upstairs. He is 
slender. No, no ! Let me work him alone. It 
might make a lot of noise, and the fellows would 


TAKING A STAND. 


81 


come out if we two tried to handle him. I can do 
it alone. You go ahead and open the door.” 

“ Oh, dear !” groaned Bithar. 

Rob shouldered his bag and worked it up to his 
room somehow. Then he tumbled Sibley on a bed, 
pulled off Sibley’s boots, and said, “ Mr. Bushel, 
you get into the other bed, please.” 

“ That’sh good !” muttered Sibley. 

Bithar was out before the fire, his gray head 
bowed upon his hands, occasionally moaning, “ Oh, 
dear !” 

It was his only response to Rob’s invitation. 

As Rob thought the matter over, what he had 
forgotten finally came to him. 

Bithar was Sibley’s grandfather. 

Then, as Rob dovetailed one probability into an 
other, he concluded that Bithar had come to Cam- 
bridge to see Sibley but could not find him that 
evening, and in the midst of Bithar’s search for a 
hotel he had been found by Rob. Much of Bithar’s 
uneasiness was no mystery now. Why he left Rob’s 
room was a mystery. 

“ Oh, I have it !” Rob assured himself. “ He 
was up — couldn’t sleep — and he may have heard 
the boys making a noise down below in the yard, 
bringing Sibley home, and he went down to find 
out something painful. Sibley can’t tell about it, 
and I don’t believe Bithar will, for I remember 
somebody said Bithar was sensitive as could be 
about Sibley, tender as a baby, never letting on 


82 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


about him, always covering up and hiding things 
Sibley did. I can’t get him to bed. He will come 
himself after a while.” 

Rob looked out once more. Bithar’s gray head 
was still bowed upon his hands. In a low and piti- 
ful tone he exclaimed, “ Oh, dear !” 


CHAPTER V. 


AN INNING, 



WIND of the spring stole through the opened 


iV windows of two rooms occupied by two 
Harvard students. It breathed into a room out- 
side the college yard, and occupied by Sibley Car- 
grove. He yawned as he felt the warm, drowsy 
strokes of the breeze, pushed back on his table the 
book before him, and said, “ This is too much for 
me. I can’t stay here moping over this book. No, 


sir !’ 


He emphasized this with a pound on the table. 

“ Examinations are coming ? What if they are ? 
Let ’em come. I am not going to be a grind for 
any one. In my last ‘ exam’ in English I did well, 
and how much did I study ? The boys all said it 
would be something unusual to pass, but I did the 
unusual thing. Why, you might stay here grind- 
ing and cramming all your lifetime, but what would 
it amount to ? The fact is, I am picking up some- 
thing all the time by keeping my eyes and ears 
open, and it amounts to something at an ‘exam.’ 
I’m good for all the English they want to give me 
here. So I’ll take an outing up in the Arsenal 


8 4 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


Woods at Watertown. No ; give me an inning — ha ! 
ha ! in town ! So here goes for Boston or any other 
place, and I will be back before night ; but I can’t 
study. This wind is too tempting.” 

He went down-stairs and slowly sauntered out 
into Harvard Square. When a street-car came 
jingling along for Boston, he jumped aboard. 

He congratulated the conductor, as he paid his 
fare, that it was a fine day. 

“ I could not stay in, conductor. Honestly, I 
could not. The wind was too fine for me, and I 
don’t see how you stand it.” 

“ Stand it ? Have to !” grinned the conductor. 
“ No chance for me to set down.” 

The car rolled Bostonward. 

The spring wind stole into Rob Merry’s room. 
At its touch he looked up, rose from the table at 
which he was listlessly studying, and went to a 
window. He saw that some of the trees leaning 
above the stones in the old cemetery on Harvard 
Square had begun to open their leaves. 

“ The spring is coming on ! Just the morning for 
a walk !” declared Rob. 

Then he looked back at his books. 

“ Spring is coming, and the June ‘ exams,’ too, 
are coming. Where will Rob Merry be then ? 
This is no way to earn a living. No, Rob, go back 
and grind away. You will get interested in your 
books after awhile. By and by, after supper, you 
can take a long walk round through Watertown to 


AN INNING. 


85 


Newton. Agreed !” After this soliloquy, Rob 
went back to his table. Sibley by this time was 
crossing West Boston Bridge. He looked out of a 
window and smiled at the huge world waiting to 
be sampled by him. With an interest like that of 
ownership, he gazed upon the buildings sloping up 
the sides of Beacon Hill to their culmination and 
crown in the gilded dome of the State House. 
Would he sample everything, taste of every experi- 
ence that a great city might offer him ? He had 
been somewhat cautious since the night he had 
disgraced himself and almost broken the heart of 
Bithar Bushel, his grandfather. 

“ Must be a little cautious !” muttered Sibley, 
stroking his beardless chin. “ And then I must re- 
member it costs, and — where is the money coming 
from ? Must take care of what I have got. Catch 
me napping ! I go into the city, my eyes open. 
Sharpers won’t get ahead of me.” 

Here he struck a new vein of thought. He 
opened his pocketbook and glanced within. Then 
he fingered a roll of bank bills. He did not notice 
a pair of dark, covetous eyes fastened by a stranger 
on those very bills. 

Sibley continued his reflections : “I have twenty- 
five dollars, and my debts amount to a hundred. 
How can I make twenty-five dollars grow into a 
hundred ? It would take a long term of schooling, 
even under so good a teacher as Maggie Gray, to 
fit me to work it out or to ‘ do that sum, ’ as the boys 


86 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


say at school. My beloved Grandfather Bithar 
won’t get it for me, and what is to be done ? 
Where can I put in twenty-five dollars — into what 
hole round here — and get out a hundred ? Shall I 
go down to the Stock Exchange and buy stock, 
hoping for a rise ?” 

He was now riding up Cambridge Street, in Bos- 
ton. He looked at the store windows. 

“ Boots and shoes ! Could I go into that busi- 
ness,” he wondered, “ and get back a hundred 
dollars for twenty-five ? And what about gro- 
ceries ? Oh, where is Plumperty ? He lives some- 
where at this end of the town — told me where. He 
borrowed a dollar of me, and has never paid it. He 
said one time, * Sibbie ’ — oh, he is too familiar — 
‘ Sibbie, if I can do you a favor, let me know. You 
may want to make some money, and I have friends 
like Broker Grab in the stock market, and I could 
show you the road to some good investments.’ 
Now, I’ll hunt him up, and perhaps by putting in 
twenty or twenty-five dollars I can get fifty. Then, 
investing the fifty, I may get a hundred. Good ! 
good! I’ll hunt him up. Didn't he say he was on 
Bowdoin Square ? I’ll inquire.” 

Two men, a little later than this ride, entered a 
room at the West End. The most conspicuous 
feature of the room seemed to be that of tables. 
Next to the tables in prominence came chairs. 
There were no pictures on the walls, no ornaments. 
There was an inside door as well as one without. 


AN INNING. 


87 


That within was iron-sheathed. It looked strange 
— an iron-sheathed door to guard nothing but tables 
and chairs in a room. Was the room occupied 
much ? 

The chairs indicated it, so numerous were they. 
But they were not of the kind adapted to any refined 
use. The room had a dreary look. The two doors 
that had swung back with a half-reluctant air as 
the two men entered, were now carefully closed. 
One of the men took dice out of a drawer and 
began to rattle them in a dice-box. 

At the same time he remarked, “ Plumperty, I 
am just rattlin’ these ’ere because I’ve nothing else 
to do. I’d like to be playin’ in earnest. Did you 
see anything or hear anything or do anything 
while you were out, in which there was any 
money ?” 

Plumperty shook his head gloomily, and then 
twisted fiercely the long ends of his mustache till 
they looked like rat-tails. 

“ I saw a chance in the car,” said Plumperty’s 
companion, “if I could only get at it. A young 
feller it was, and he looked like a Harvard student, 
but a freshman I should say, for he was handling 
his money out in open sight, and then he had a 
still green look, as if he hadn’t been a full year in 
town, Plumperty, now I tell ye !” 

“Joseph, why didn’t you assume that fatherly 
way so natural to you and invite him to a public 
meeting or something of the sort ?” 


88 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ ‘ Fatherly,’ Plumperty !” 

Here Joseph’s dark, greedy eyes looked like a 
vulture’s. 

“And why didn’t I do it? Lost my wits, I 
should say. But this stayin’ here is tiresome. Let’s 
go out. We may pick up some business.’’ 

The two men locked the doors behind them and 
went down-stairs. They had turned a corner near 
their den, when Plumperty exclaimed, “Why, if 
that isn’t — ’’ 

“ Our chicken, yes, the very one I saw in the 
car. Do you know him ? He looks as if he wanted 
to find somebody.” 

“ Yes, I know him, and he always looks that way 
— on the lookout for something.” 

Yes, there was Sibley, his eyes rolling round, his 
nose thrust forward, his air that of an investigator, 
while for all in the world he had the old smile of wel- 
come. He came up at once and spoke cordially: 
“ Mister Plumperty, how are you ? I am glad to 
see you.” 

“ My dear Sibley, I welcome you as a father 
would a son. And this, Mr. Cargrove, of Harvard, 
is my friend, Dr. Archibald, of Boston.’’ 

“ I am very glad to see our friend from Har- 
vard,” declared the “vulture,” whose real name 
was Joe Graves. 

As he spoke, the vulture bowed deferentially. 
He also “ hoped Mr. Cargrove, of Harvard, was 
well.” 


AN INNING. 89 

“ Mr. Cargrove” also bowed, and felt that he was 
in very polite society. 

“ I wanted to see you, Mr. Plumperty.” 

“ I am here, and what can I do for you ? Please 
command my services.” 

“ I wanted to ask you if I could see you about” 
— here Sibley looked around him, as if wishing for 
a chance to meet Plumperty alone. 

“ Oh, I know what you want. Take your friend 
to my room,” besought the vulture. ” You know 
where it is. It is, and anything there, at your dis- 
posal.” 

” Thank you, doctor, you are very kind ; and we 
will be there in a moment, if you will just unlock 
the door of your retreat.” 

” Oh, certainly.” 

The vulture hopped away, leaving Sibley with 
Plumperty, who carefully listened to Sibley’s re- 
quest for information about investments, and prom- 
ised him all needed help. This gave the vulture 
time to make a few changes in his “ retreat.” He 
put on his fleetest pair of wings, flew to the tables, 
and pushed them against the wall. He flew to a 
closet and pulled out several rolls of heavy rugs 
and spread them on the floor. A quantity of the 
superfluous chairs he piled in this closet. He 
hopped to another closet, and, bringing out a 
brilliant portiere, he draped with it the iron- 
sheathed door. Then he hopped to a drawer, and, 
taking out a picture of the Father of his Country 


9 ° 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


set in a gilt frame, he placed it on a table and 
leaned it against the wall. “ What is Home with- 
out a Mother?” a picture very appropriate to all 
such places that show great need of home instruc- 
tion, was also made to ornament a table. These 
tables were all artistically covered by the vulture 
with heavy cloths of rich green felt. 

“ That will do !” exclaimed the vulture. 

What a transformation ! 

Plumperty had gone out of a room with a bare, 
dismal look. He led Sibley into a gentleman’s 
parlor. 

“ Make yourself at home,” was Dr. Archibald’s 
invitation to Sibley. 

“ Yes,” chimed in Plumperty, “ the doctor likes 
to have his friends use this as if it were theirs.” 

Sibley felt that it was generous as well as polite 
company he had been ushered into. 

A commonplace conversation had sprung up 
which soon died out, and all looked as if they would 
like to have a change. 

” Do any of you gentlemen ever take a hand at 
cards ?” casually asked the vulture. 

” That would be very nice,” said Plumperty, with 
a patronizing, fatherly way. “ What do you say, 
Harvard ; shall we oblige him ?” 

“ I don’t care if I do, gentlemen.” 

“ That is right,” Plumperty assured him ; “ and 
I am going to give either of you gentlemen a dollar 
if you beat me.” 


AN INNING. 


91 


“ I — I don’t object to your giving me the dollar,” 
Dr. Archibald assured him ; ” but if it depends on 
my skill, I am afraid I can’t do anything.” 

“ Afraid — ha ! ha ! You think it is playing with 
the lion ? Mr. Cargrove understands the meaning 
of this. It is only a classic sentiment they use at 
Harvard. As for my friend, he is a fine player, 
and he will get the dollar.” 

This tickled Sibley, who did his best and won, 
though if he had done his worst, the dollar was des- 
tined for him all the same. 

” I hand this to Mr. Cargrove, one of the Har- 
vard prizes, and he can tie a crimson ribbon about 
it,” said Plumperty. 

The dollar was laid before Sibley, who felt that 
it would be impolite to refuse it. 

” I don’t know about this,” said the vulture, with 
a serious tone. “ I am not much of a player, but 
I would like to try that again. I will offer a prize 
of a dollar to the winner.” 

Sibley was winner. 

A man came in whom Plumperty introduced as 
” Professor Gullivan.” 

The professor had a big red nose and a mouth 
like a sculpin, and a cold, fishy hand, which he 
dropped loosely into Sibley’s firm grasp. 

” I must go out awhile to get some information 
for Mr. Cargrove, gentlemen ; but the rest can 
stay. I’ll come back for my friend. Try another 
game of cards,” remarked Plumperty. 


9 2 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Oh, yes !” said the professor, “ but I am poor 
on cards.” 

“ Dr. Archibald” thought he must go, first say- 
ing that he would like to stop, but he could offer 
no more “ prizes” to-day. 

“Did the doctor offer a prize?” the professor 
asked when alone with Sibley. 

“ Yes ; he insisted on offering one, and Mr. 
Plumperty too.” 

“ And you won them ?” 

“ Why, I couldn’t help it ; but I did not want to 
keep the money.” 

“ It is yours. It would offend them if you re- 
turned it. I should like to give a prize — ” 

“ Oh, you need not.” 

“ Let us try. You shall have a dollar if you beat 
me. You will lose nothing. It is not gambling. ” 

Sibley won it. 

” I don’t want this money, professor.” 

“ You don’t, really ? I don’t like to take it back, 
but if you will let me suggest, make it five dollars.” 

Sibley did not appreciate the meaning of the 
compact, but he played nevertheless, and this time 
the professor won and held out his cold, fishy hand 
in a very practical way, not at all in that polite, self- 
denying fashion so taking in the case of the other 
“ gentlemen,” while that mouth, big and mis- 
shapen, opened in an awkward attempt to smile. 

Sibley grinned, and roughly calculated in his 
mind how much he was out by this transaction. 


AN INNING. 


93 


He made a quick estimate that he had been “ pre- 
sented” with three dollars, and this professor he 
had “ presented” with five dollars. He was out 
two dollars. 

Sibley was not a total fool. 

Whatever the others, those “ gentlemen meant, 
this man meant something disastrous. 

He would strip Sibley of his money, and this net- 
tled Sibley. Of course he knew what it was — 
GAMBLING, in big letters. He heard warning 
voices, “ Don’t play with the lion,” but he did not 
hear a second time. He was nettled, provoked, 
indignant, mad. Lion or no lion, with teeth or 
without teeth, with claws or without them, he was 
going to whip, if he could, this man with a fish 
mouth and a fish hand. He rushed ahead without 
any care for consequences. He played again and 
again, staked money again and again, and repeat- 
edly he was beaten. He was a lamb shorn of every 
bit of fleece. No, he had five cents in his pocket, 
and he knew without it he must walk to Cambridge ; 
but he had decided to play it. 

“ You don’t mean to play that away ?” said the 
fish, a gleam of pity softening his hard features. 

“ Yes, I do. I insist on it. I’ll beat you if I 
can.” 

“ Indeed !” said the fish, stiffening and harden- 
ing. Then he gave what Sibley called a fish-laugh, 
and never forgotten. 

Sibley was soon without one penny ! 


94 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


When Plumperty and the doctor came in, the man 
from Harvard was in a whirlwind of emotion. He 
was mad with the “ professor/’ who slipped out as 
the others came in, first tipping a wink to Plump- 
erty. Sibley was madder with himself than with 
the professor. 

“ Why are you so excited ?” asked Plumperty. 

“ Excited ? I have reason to be. That feller has 
not left me a penny ! Took every cent !” 

“ He has ? Now, doctor, the professor must stop 
that. He has abused our hospitality, and gambled 
with our young friend from Cambridge. I will 
complain of him to the police, Mr. Cargrove — ” 

“Yes, do !’’ 

“ Only you would go to court as a witness ; and 
if you played with him then you would be guilty — ’’ 

“ Oh ! oh ! let him go ! Don’t say anything to 
the police.” 

“ I won’t if you say so ; but the professor must 
stop this, doctor.” 

“ Yes, he must,” said the holy-minded doctor. 

“ Mr. Cargrove, come out and dine with me,” 
requested Plumperty. 

Plumperty dined Sibley and wined him the same 
hour that “ the doctor” and “the professor” were 
holding a session in their beautiful “ retreat,” divid- 
ing up the profits. Plumperty’s share was a third. 

“ Ha ! ha !” said the professor. “ Plumperty 
will pour oil in the wounds of that — what’s his 
name ? — and fix him so he won’t blab.” 


AN INNING. 


95 


Sibley ate and drank what was set before him at 
a restaurant. He knew he had been playing with 
the lion, and felt that he had been badly bitten. 
Yes, as the professor said, there were “ wounds.” 
Sibley realized that Plumperty had deceived him. 
He resolved that he would make Plumperty’s bill 
as heavy as possible. 

” I’ll be back again,” said Plumperty, rising 
from the table of the restaurant. 

“ No,” said the suspicious Sibley ; “ my eyes are 
open now. You must not leave me. You must 
pay the bill. You or your accomplice has my last 
penny.” 

“ Mr. Cargrove, of course I will. You are insult- 
ing !” 

“ I never was more gentlemanly in my life. You 
wait. Don’t you play with this lion. I have been 
practising in the gymnasium, and I might hurt you. ’ ’ 

Sibley was savage. 

Plumperty said nothing now, but paid the bill 
when it was presented, and they went out together. 
“ How can I shake off the feller ?” thought Plump- 
erty. 

He was meditating upon this question as they 
were passing along a little street leading from Cam- 
bridge Street. Looking up he saw something that 
made him stop, and he began to stammer out some 
incoherent alarm. 

“ R — r — run, Sibley ! There is a policeman. 
You — you — ” Plumperty broke into a run. 


9 6 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Here ! here !” shouted a stern voice that to 
Sibley seemed to come out of the ground. “ I 
have been wanting you for some time.” 

It was a policeman who had turned a corner close 
at hand. He followed Plumperty with the agility 
of a hound, and soon overtook and bore him off. 

Sibley was left to go where he pleased, and he 
started for the college. He arrived there after a 
tiresome walk, dissatisfied, ashamed, disgusted 
with himself and that outer world he had been 
“ sampling.” 

The next morning Sibley read this in a Boston 
daily : “A den of infamy was broken up last night. 
One Plumperty was arrested during the day, and 
subsequently he dropped things that led the police 
to investigate No. 18 Street. It was neces- 

sary to break through an iron-cased door, and there 
was a gambler’s nest behind. A picture of George 
Washington was on a table, but the Father of his 
Country could not smile on such a scene. Neither 
did a picture save it called ‘ What is Home without 
a Mother?’ We would like to have some vigorous 
mothers walk into such a place when in full blast 
and not in the disguise of quarters decorated with 
innocent pictures.” 

“ Don’t play with the lion !” echoed a voice in 
the ear of the reader of that paragraph. 

Sibley for two months did not dare to walk 
through this street that had its No. 18. 


CHAPTER VI. 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 

T HREE years more slipped away. Maggie 
Gray went one June day to a Mrs. Fennel’s, 
in the vicinity of Cambridge. Mrs. Fennel was a 
niece of Bithar Bushel, whom she visited in sum- 
mer, and she asked Maggie, whose acquaintance 
she had made among the hills, to spend Class Day 
at her house. Bithar Bushel expected to visit Har- 
vard later, on Commencement Day, that he might 
see his grandson take that diploma and degree Sib- 
ley had so often eulogized in mountain-circles. 
Would he get it ? Sibley called at Mrs. Fennel’s to 
accompany her and Maggie to Sanders’ Theatre to 
witness Class Day exercises. He was substantially 
the same Sibley as ever. Eager to see, eager to 
hear, self-confident, thinking he could venture where 
others had slipped and had set up the signpost 
“Danger!” 

The city beyond the expanding Charles he had re- 
garded as life for his special “ sampling” and ex- 
tended investigation also whenever he wished it. 
He had the same rolling, inquisitive eyes, the same 
smile of expectation. He had played with the lion 


9 8 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


quite often, and he had been badly clawed several 
times. He knew much more than when he entered 
college, and if he had known less about some 
things, how much better it would have been ! A 
sad thing about our playing with the lion is, that 
the lion gets a hold upon us if we trouble him 
much. He imparts his beastliness to his victim, 
and the latter is not the pure,' innocent being he 
may have been once. Sibley would not like to 
allow that the drink habit had any serious hold 
upon him, that the lion’s claws had sunk so deeply 
into him that he could not tear them away, and yet 
sometimes he confessed to himself that he liked 
liquor better than might be good for him. He had 
grown careless about some other things. He could 
dress up a deception — in plain language, a lie — call- 
ing it “ fun,” and say it was a joke, and think no 
more about it. As for habits of study, he had none. 
College to him was not a place for accurate and 
prolonged study, but an indefinite existence, where, 
by doing nothing in particular like work, just keep- 
ing your eyes open, one gets experience and cul- 
ture, and an idea of what is wanted in life. Some 
of his examinations he had barely rubbed through, 
and others had left a sense of deficiency, of 
demerit that at times had rubbed through him 
roughly. He did not know it now, but his class 
standing was so bad that it would have alarmed him 
if he had known that nominally a senior his actual 
place by rank was among the juniors. For the life 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 


99 


beyond college, his outlook was no more serious 
than when he entered. He expected to be a suc- 
cess, although not preparing for it — to shine as a 
bright star when he had not light enough to stock 
a barn lantern. 

He had gone to Mrs. Fennel’s to call on Maggie 
Gray. She was the same sweet, bright-minded, 
womanly Maggie Gray. She had been keeping 
school steadily, for some reason working very 
hard, though her friends told her she was too close 
in her application to her work. She occupied a 
very flattering position at her present time, doing 
in a high school a man’s work, and — a wonderful 
thing ! — she was getting man’s pay. She had met 
Rob Merry several times during his college course, 
and their friendship had strengthened each time. 
Any liking for Sibley had become disliking. He 
seemed to her to be the same vain, frivolous, in- 
quisitive, self-asserting creature as ever. 

Maggie, Sibley, and Mrs. Fennel were out on 
Mrs. Fennel’s piazza the evening before Class Day. 

“ So you have come down to see Class Day, Mag- 
gie. Well, it is worth seeing.” 

Here Sibley arose from his seat and strutted 
across the platform, his hands in his pockets. 

“ Oh, Sib, don’t tantalize us, but tell us just 
what the exercises will be. Who will say anything 
or do anything? Do tell us,” pleaded Mrs. Fen- 
nel, ogling him through her gold-bowed eye- 
glasses. 


IOO 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Well, we have an oration and a poem. I sup- 
pose you know Rob Merry gives the oration ?” 

“Does he?” asked Maggie, who had known it 
for some time. 

“ I don’t like that Robert Merry,’’ declared Mrs. 
Fennel positively, screwing up her nose in disgust. 

“Well, you’ve got to hear him, coz,’’ said Sib- 
ley, calling her by a pet name that fascinated her. 

“ I had much rather hear you — oh, so much 
rather! I don’t want to hear that Merry, I dislike 
him so much !’’ 

Mrs. Fennel’s dislike was very unfair. 

She was very vain, though she had nothing to be 
vain about. She was very sensitive on the point of 
her looks ; and as she had no good looks, it was not 
strange that she was sensitive. She was exceed- 
ingly plain. At a party where she and Rob Merry 
stood accidentally side by side before a looking- 
glass, the contrast between Mrs. Fennel’s lank 
form and homely face and the fine figure and hand- 
some features of Rob Merry made her mad. She 
could not forgive either him or the glass. She 
wanted to exile the first and break the second. She 
now said again she did not like that Robert Merry. 

Sibley grinned. 

He had noticed Maggie’s preference for Rob, 
and he wished to torment her. 

“ Fun,’’ he labelled it. His course was first to 
praise Rob and then not directly lie about him, 
but to leave a wrong impression. 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 


IOI 


“ Oh, coz, you are hard ! for Rob Merry is rated 
a fine feller, and then he is good-looking. ” 

The effect was what he desired. 

“ Oh, I can’t bear him !” shrieked coz. “ Don’t !” 

She motioned something away with her thin 
red fingers, as if it were a black spider called 
“ Merry.” 

” Coz, why not ?” 

“ Oh, he is such a conceited paragon of good- 
ness ! They say he is very industrious ; that he 
tutors a good deal to pay his expenses, does not 
smoke, does not drink — ” 

“ As for the drinking,” said Sibley, proceeding to 
manufacture his ” fun,” “ I do not wish, of course, 
to slander a classmate, and we must not tell tales out 
of school — as this teacher with us well understands 
— but when Rob Merry is alone by himself — ha ! 
ha ! You have heard of drinking like a fish ?” 

“ Then he will drink !” said Mrs. Fennel. ” I 
knew so. There for ye ! That’s what you mean 
to say, Sib ?” 

Sibley said nothing, but grinned in the direction 
of the ceiling. 

“ I hate these pinks of perfection in public,” 
asserted Mrs. Fennel, “ but in private they are — ” 

“ Common potatoes — ha ! ha !” 

“ Oh, the hypocrite !” said Mrs. Fennel. 

Maggie’s cheeks were burning. 

She could not silently stand and hear the defama- 
tion of a friend. 


102 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS . 


“ I have seen Mr. Merry under many circum- 
stances, and he never showed any sign of that habit 
which Mr. Cargrove insinuates.” 

“ Insinuates !” It stung Sibley. 

“Oh,” he exclaimed ironically, “am I unjust? 
Well, I have never seen him so much as you, of 
course.” 

Maggie’s cheeks were now so hot it seemed as if 
a grate of coals were inside each of them. 

Mrs. Fennel had sense enough left to suggest 
that they adjourn to the house. This broke up the 
awkwardness of the situation. 

The next day Mrs. Fennel and Maggie were at 
Sanders’ Theatre, watching the people as they 
thronged in to witness class exercises. 

“ Oh, dear !” whispered Mrs. Fennel, “ must I 
sit next to Mrs. Knight ? I suppose so. Her son 
is going to give the poem, and he will bore 
me.” 

“ Let me sit there, Mrs. Fennel.” 

“ Oh, no ! I was made to be a martyr.” 

Mrs. Fennel had a voice liquid as honey, but it 
carried along what the honey-makers are furnished 
with — a sting. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Knight, how do you do ? I am de- 
lighted to see you !” cried this Mrs. Deception. 

Mrs. Knight had a sincere, kindly, nervous face, 
and as she sat down replied, “ Thank you.” 

“ Where is your son, Mrs. Knight ?” 

“ There he is — on the platform.” 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 


103 

“ Oh, I see ! He has changed so very much. 
He wears a mustache.” 

“ They all do.” 

“ As soon as they are equal to it. I see he is 
named on the Phi Beta Kappa.” 

“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Knight modestly, “but 
he is not an orator. He cannot speak like Robert 
Merry.” 

“ I am glad he cannot. That Merry is not to 
my taste. I am sure it is quite an honor to give 
the poem, which your son will do.” 

“ Don’t look at me if I say or do or act in any 
way foolish. You know what mothers are. He 
did not want to write it, but he was really forced 
to do it, and of course I took an interest in it. It 
is hard to get one to take the poem.” 

“ Yes — yes — they have good many first and last, 
but they don’t amount to much. There was Mrs. 
Merriam. Her husband gave — he — gave a poem 
on something, and she sat looking at him as if en- 
raptured. It wasn’t specially brilliant. I have 
heard Lowell’s on — on — something — the poet, you 
know — and that was very fine.” 

“ You shameful woman !” thought Maggie. 
“ Why don’t you give that poor mother some en- 
couragement ?” 

However, Mrs. Knight was a woman of sense, 
and did not attach any more importance to Mrs. 
Fennel’s opinion than it deserved. 

The exercises were duly opened, and Rob Merry 


io4 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


gave his oration. It was a manly defence of the 
right of the individual conscience to challenge 
all mental activity that came before it. 

He did not see Maggie. 

She had eyes only for Rob. 

Sam Knight acquitted himself with much credit. 
Mrs. Fennel smiled patronizingly on Mrs. Knight, 
and said, “ Very good, very good, really ! Full of 
imagination. You have to look out for poets, Mrs. 
Knight. They are not apt to be very practical.” 

To Maggie she whispered, “ I liked Knight’s 
poem better than Merry’s oration. There was too 
much of the soaring element in the latter for me ; 
but I will say this for Merry, that he has had a very 
good influence over Sam Knight. They say Sam 
when a freshman was quite — quite — shall I say it, 
careless ? Merry has improved him, and I will say 
that for Merry, though I don’t like such saints. I 
prefer every-day flesh-and-blood people like you.” 

“ Oh, I am so grateful, Mrs. Fennel,” Maggie 
wanted to say, but she had the tongue of the wise 
woman, and while keeping silent, rejoiced that she 
would on the morrow leave Mrs. Fennel’s home. 
Would she see Rob Merry before she went ?” 

She saw him in the afternoon at a “ spread.” 
Rob did not give one. The reason behind his 
tutoring — a desire to reduce any expense to his 
father to as small figures as possible— was the rea- 
son behind the omission of a spread in his room 
class day. His tutoring and his scholarship almost 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 105 

covered his expenses, and he was not willing to add 
to the latter by a big collation which his father 
must pay for. 

It was Tom Bingham’s spread. 

Tom was rich. He could afford to invite all his 
friends and welcome them to the most expensive 
lunch of the day. He stood by a new punch-bowl, 
and, imbibing liberally himself, summoned others 
to imbibe. Sibley promptly accepted the invitation. 
The ring of drinkers was a large one. They were 
laughing away when Rob Merry sauntered along. 

“ Ah, Rob, that you ?” called out Tom in his 
nervous fashion. “ Glad to see you — yes, glad to 
see you. And now — look here ! Never drank with 
me — no — never did. Now, Rob, I call upon you 
here — all the boys here — last time, you know, in 
our course — Robert — can’t meet again — and, gen- 
tlemen, we will all drink to the health of our orator, 
Robert Merry.” 

The temptation came upon Rob suddenly. He 
was surprised afterward to reflect how near the 
edge of a surrender he came. Everybody was 
looking. He had taken the glass Tom held out. 
Sam Knight, nervously fingering a glass yet un- 
touched, was looking at Rob. 

One moment Rob hesitated. 

Why not make an exception of this occasion, and 
drink with his classmates just once ? Why offend 
them ? Rob’s liking for the good opinion of others 
pressed upon him. By chance, looking away from 


io6 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


his glass, he saw Sibley Cargrove. It was a profile 
view Rob had. There was the sharp, angular out- 
line which made him think of another profile, very 
much older, a face up against the sky, a face look- 
ing off day and night, set and determined, that 
the heat of summer could not melt or the cold of 
winter freeze into submission. 

Rob set his glass down. 

“ I thank you, Tom, for your cordial hospitality ; 
but” — Rob had grasped a pitcher of water, and, 
filling an empty glass, he lifted it — “ but, thanking 
you, here, boys — here’s to you all, and here’s to 
the best class that ever graduated, health, happi- 
ness, and long life ! I drink to you all.” 

He emptied his glass of water. 

The others emptied their glasses of punch — all 
save one, Sam Knight, who stood next to Rob. 
He set down his glass of punch and filled a glass 
with water and drank it. 

“ Thank you, Rob. I don’t want to get back 
again to my old carelessness. You helped me. 
Thank you !” 

” Don’t go back ever, Sam.” 

“ Your hand on it, Rob ! I’ll keep my word.” 

They shook hands cordially. 

“ Drumsticks !” muttered Tom Bingham to a 
companion. “ I thought I had Merry that time.” 

When Rob turned round he saw a pair of the 
prettiest blue eyes in the world fastened on his 
resolute face. 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD . 107 

“ Excuse me, boys, I’ll see you again,” said Rob, 
turning away. 

“ Oh, he goes to get his reward !” remarked Sib- 
ley sneeringly. 

Rob’s classmates turned, and their eyes followed 
his movements. 

“ She is a pretty girl,” observed Tom ; “ for — 
for — such — a reward — I don’t know but I would 
have swallowed that — that — water.” 

Maggie gave Rob a cordial welcome ; “I saw it 
all, though I could not hear ; and I understood 
the pantomime. You did well, and I congratulate 
you.” 

“ Oh, I thank you. Will you walk in the yard ?” 

“ Oh, thank you ; I suppose my guardian angel, 
Mrs. Fennel, will remind me soon that we must go 
home.” 

The yard was a bright picture. There were long 
columns promenading in the shade of the bending 
trees, and the ladies’ dresses were brilliant. 

” May I tell you, Mr. Merry, how much I liked 
your oration ?” 

“You are very good.” 

“ But, good as it was, I don’t know but I liked 
still better that silent speech — silent to me, audible 
to others, and made next that punch-bowl.” 

” Singular, if I may confess it, how anything 
may tempt us and perhaps overcome us because 
coming so suddenly. I never drink ; but — ” 

“ There !” was Maggie’s triumphant thought ; 


io8 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ I knew so, notwithstanding Sibley’s insinua 
tion.” 

“ But for one moment, so strong was the press- 
ure, I found myself hesitating. I recovered my- 
self, I am glad to say ; but it left me thinking 
Here we are, storing up strength behind our bat- 
teries, thinking we are safe, when suddenly the 
enemy raids into our quarters, and almost captures 
us at our guns. That ought to make us charitable 
in examining other people s failings, surprises, 
captures. Now, I am grateful for your interest ; 
but tell me about yourself.” 

“ Oh, I am at the old work — teaching. Will 
you take it up ? Have you decided what to do ?” 

“ I don’t think I shall teach, but do you mean 
my life-work ?” 

“ I did mean your life-work, but perhaps I am 
too inquisitive.” 

“ Not at all. I like to have you interested. 
What next to do is a very important question. To- 
day there seems to be nothing of so much impor- 
tance as to go through Class Day, and then to grad- 
uate, but it will be all over soon, and then comes 
practical life. Well, father and I have talked as if 
we would be in business together, and yet nothing 
has been determined. I will tell you how I feel, 
and you may be surprised and may smile at me.” 

“ No, I won’t smile, but will be very grave.” 

“ That is very considerate, Miss Maggie. I will 
tell you how I feel sometimes. Here is a given 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 109 

quantity — no, an indefinite quantity — of people 
everywhere in trouble, 1 all sorts and conditions of 
men,’ as the prayer-book puts it, and I feel like 
going out and telling the man that has made a mis- 
take he must not despair, but try again ; and the 
woman who is in great trouble because her baby 
has died, that our Heavenly Father pities her and 
will hold her up and will care for her little one in 
another and better world — ” 

“ Oh, you are thinking of the ministry ?” 

“ What, the ministry ? Oh, that seems away be- 
yond me, when I think about Rob Merry’s faults. 
He is a person I know a good deal about. Why, I 
am so impulsive and speak so quick and do things 
I am sorry for ; and then I do not think I am really 
reverent. A little thing will upset my seriousness 
if I happen to notice it. I sometimes think I am 
like a ticklish boat in a rough current, and my 
gravity goes before anything ludicrous. It is true, 
from the little I have had to do with writing and 
speaking, it has seemed to me a great thing to 
reach people through one’s thoughts. A mechanic 
reaches people through his ingenious contrivances, 
and a merchant through trade that brings other 
people much comfort, and my father, as sea cap- 
tain, in bringing together the ends of the earth — 
all have done much good ; and if one put con- 
science into his work, I don’t know why it does not 
become truly, practically religious. Still, to influ- 
ence people through what we write, through what 


no 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


we say, through agencies like prayer, through the 
Church, seems to me the highest form of living. 
That though is only an ideal, too far above me. I 
don’t think I can come up to it — ” here he 
paused. 

“ Tell me, Mr. Merry, you will seriously think 
about the ministry ?” 

“ I — I will think of it ; but I don’t believe, Miss 
Maggie, it will do any good. Things don’t seem 
to lead that way, and that is an unfavorable indica- 
tion.” 

“ Something may come up to show you the way, 
something to suggest what may be your duty. We 
may see something if we look for it. Now, you 
won’t see guide-boards in a road if you don’t look 
for them as you go along.” 

” Sometimes if people look to see something, they 
may find it, whether it be there or not ; and if I itn- 
agine I have struck a guide-board, of what value is 
it ? But there” — Rob’s tone became very serious — 
“ I won’t talk that way. If we believe that God 
comes into our life to direct it, surely we shall see 
the footprints of His presence. There will be 
something to follow as a guide. Let my future go, 
though. I have been frank with you, more than I 
am with people generally in such matters ; and 
now won’t you tell me about your life-work ? What 
are your plans ?” 

“ Oh,” said Maggie shyly,” I shall keep on teach- 
ing. Women nowadays are breaking out into vari- 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 


hi 


ous professions, and I believe in it all, but there is 
one thing about teaching I appreciate and like — it 
brings you into very close relations with young 
people at an age when they are very sensitive to 
impressions, and you can powerfully influence them. 
The clay is plastic. It may be a rather exalted 
view — I mean extravagant — no, it is not. In teach- 
ing there is the contact of soul with soul, of thought 
with thought, under conditions of a very favorable 
nature. I take a scholar when character is form- 
ing, and I have an opportunity to stamp myself, 
my ideas, on that soul so susceptible. I am just 
an enthusiast about my work.” 

Maggie’s eyes were glowing. 

“ I don’t see but that you and I have a like view 
of the highest way of influencing people, only I 
look up to my ideal and don’t follow it ; you do, 
though. And I suppose it is the reason why you 
persistently teach, though you go overburdened. I 
hear your friends say you have been overworking. 
You teach because you so thoroughly believe in it.” 

" Yes, it is the leading reason, but not every rea- 
son. I don’t know as I can be as frank with you 
as you have been with me, in telling all my rea- 
sons.” 

“ I shall trust your motives.” 

“It is pleasant to be trusted, one of the best 
proofs of friendship. Thank you.” 

“ You won’t teach this summer vacation, as you 
sometimes do ?” 


1 1 2 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ I hope to have a rest among the mountains I 
so much admire, and not begin work again till 
fall.” 

“ Then I shall see you, if you will let me call 
some time.” 

“ I — I — should — 

Suddenly, peremptorily, across this conversation 
fell like a knife the voice that, while liquid as honey 
in its tones, had in its temper an edge like steel : 

“ Oh, here you are ! I see you are very busy ; 
but I shall have to interrupt you, Miss Maggie, if 
Mr. Merry can spare you.” 

“ Oh, certainly, Mrs. Fennel. I hope to see Miss 
Gray this summer.” 

” I hope so. Good-bye, Mr. Merry,” said Mag- 
gie. 

‘ ‘ Good-bye.” 

Maggie’s eyes were full of regrets, and Rob 
thought he interpreted their unspoken language. 

Rob did not see her again in Cambridge. The 
days succeeding Class Day were very busy ones. 
They were only rounds leading up to that last one 
in the college ladder — Commencement Day — and 
up each round a burden must be carried. 

When this final round had been reached, many 
people gathered to see the young men about to step 
upon the stage of life’s serious work. The confer- 
ring of the degrees, the receiving of the diplomas, 
always will make for spectators a fascinating scene. 
The Merrys came to see Rob graduate, and one per- 


CLOSING BAYS AT HARVARD. 113 

son made a special journey from the New Hampshire 
hills to see Sibley take his diploma. This was 
Bithar Bushel. 

“ I thank you, Lursindy,” he told Mrs. Fennel, 
“ for invitin’ me to see Sibley take his diploma. 
I’ve had some misgivin’s about Sibley, and I am 
rayther relieved to have him through. College 
brings its temptations, but if a boy has given in to 
sin, real life — real life may take all the kinks out of 
him. I hope it will be so with Sibley. I can’t but 
think he means well at the bottom, though he has 
been rayther skittish on top. Not jest a stiddy 
boy, but coltish in college. I suggest that we be 
on hand airly to git a seat.” 

He would have Mrs. Fennel down at the door of 
Sanders’ Theatre an hour before the time, to make 
sure of a “ settin’.” When he was fully estab- 
lished inside it was a pleasure to witness his satis- 
faction, to see his kindly face, with its complexion 
rosy as a boy’s, his eyes full of pleasure, a smile 
lighting up as honest a face as there was in all the 
big audience. After the exercises, in which the 
speakers from the student-list had taken part, the 
president of the college took his turn, and the class 
rose to receive their diplomas. 

Bithar’s eyes sparkled. 

“ Them round things tied up with ribbin, I 
s’pose, is what is wanted, Lursindy.” 

“ Yes, uncle ; but they will hear us.” 

“ I wish my darter, Sibley’s mother, could be 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


114 

here to see it all,” remarked Bithar, forgetting any 
cautions given by his relative. 

“ I am glad she isn’t,” mused Mrs. Fennel. 
“ The talking would be incessant.” 

“ They’re handin’ ’em round, Lursindy. That’s 
good ! They’re as purty things as I ever seed.” 

But where was Sibley’s diploma ? 

Sibley was there, with the same face of wonder 
and quest. No smile, though, was on it. It was a 
sad, pitiful blank. 

There was no diploma for Sibley ! 

He had failed to pass the final “ exam” and 
earn his degree. 

No smile on Sibley’s face, and no smile was on one 
other face — Bithar’s. He watched Sibleyk eenly. 
To make sure that there had been no mistake 
made, Bithar waited when others had passed out, 
including “ Lursindy” who was not going to stop 
and be party to “ a scene.” He waited patiently. 
Finally Sibley fell back to his grandfather’s seat. 

“ Sibley, didn’t ye git it ?” 

“ My diploma ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“N — n — no; but there may be some mistake, 
and I shall have it yet.” 

“ There’s no mistake, Sibley !” said his grand- 
father solemnly. 

How could there be a mistake, when Sibley had 
been steadily, perseveringly neglectful of the con- 
ditions of success ? 


CLOSING DAYS AT HARVARD. 115 

“ There’s no mistake,” said Bithar seriously 
again, rising and staring at the platform across 
which had come to Sibley’s hands nothing to fill 
them as an evidence of a course successfully com- 
pleted. 

The old man’s eyes were growing misty as he 
still stared at the platform. He reached a hand 
down to the seat before him, as if to steady him- 
self. Gazing once more, as if possibly to see on 
that platform something he had not discovered 
yet, he murmured, “ I’m glad my darter isn’t 
here.” Then he took up his carefully kept panama 
newly banded for this occasion, grasped his knob- 
headed cane made out of an oak root from Mt. 
Kearsarge, and walked slowly, mournfully away. 


CHAPTER VII. 


CLIMBING LAFAYETTE. 

‘ ‘ 'T'HERE he is, father ! There he is !” Rob 
A was crying out enthusiastically. Then 
he halted, and, leaning upon his long mountain 
staff, looked off upon the Old Man of the Moun- 
tain. By Rob’s side stood another mountain trav- 
eller, his father, leaning also upon his alpenstock, 
and likewise looking off. 

Yes, there was the Old Man in his old place far 
up the mountain precipice, a space of clear light 
beyond his profile bringing every feature out into 
a prominent distinctness. There were the com- 
pressed lips, the sunken mouth, the bold Roman 
nose, the chin heavy and massive, and the whole 
face, it might be said, was set in an unchangeable 
severity. The light beyond the profile sharpened, 
and the profile itself grew more distinct, more stern 
and rigid. In the midst of a warm, softening light 
was a frozen face. 

“ I never saw him look better, Rob,” declared 
the captain. 

“ I should think, father, he would be tired stick- 


CLIMBING LAFAYETTE. 


“7 


ing out his nose and his chin from the rocks about 
him, never changing a muscle.” 

“ If he is tired, he never confesses it. Fine ! I’d 
like to stay here hours and watch him as the light 
and shade change.” 

“ He won’t change, though, in the spirit.” 

“ Well, Rob, if we are going to tackle Lafayette 
this afternoon, we must be moving.” 

“You spoke of making a cup of coffee some- 
where. If we do it now, we can put that into our 
climb. Besides, we can be getting several more 
good looks at His Majesty.” 

“ All right !” 

The knapsacks of the travellers were dropped, 
a fire kindled, a cup of Java made, and then it was 
thoroughly enjoyed. The programme was a drink 
and then a look. 

“ Fine coffee, father ; just see the Old Man 
now !” 

“ I know it ; he’s a hero ! Real refreshing ! I 
must have another cup.” 

“ Oh ! oh ! see him now ! He is positively 
spiteful. I know he wants to say something. This 
coffee is excellent !” 

“ Yes, good ; going to the spot. Isn’t he a Ro- 
man !” 

“ Tastes well, yes, yes. There ! A man like that 
won’t stand any nonsense !” 

“ No, no ; firm, decided ! Just pour me a grain 


more. 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS . 


1 18 

Lunch over, the travellers packed and shouldered 
their knapsacks, gripped their sticks, and then 
looked up once more at the Old Man. 

The space of warm, melting light around those 
insoluble features had been invaded by a feathery 
white cloud. There came another of those dainty 
raiders, one attacking his very nose. The Old 
Man, though, scorned to notice these approaches. 
He was looking far beyond them, and whatever 
far-away vision detained his thoughts, he would not 
give up the secret to pigmy people down in the 
Franconia Notch road. 

“ Good-bye, old fellow !” cried the captain, lift- 
ing his hat. 

“ Good-bye, sir ! H cried Rob, also saluting, and 
in the Merry courtly way which was good enough 
for mountain kings and not too good for beggar 
women and paupers that might accost them. 

The plan of the travellers was to attack the path 
to the summit of Mount Lafayette and follow it as 
far up as they could advisably go, and there camp 
for the night. Then they proposed to rise at an hour 
sufficiently early to enable them to gain the summit 
by sunrise. 

They now took the path near the Profile House 
known as the new path, in distinction from one 
labelled as “ the old.” 

Sweet had been the summer air that day, fair the 
white clover and the yellow buttercups by the road- 
side, while the birds at dawn had never put wings 


CLIMBING LA FA YE T TE. i 1 9 

to a more jubilant chorus. The snow and the gold 
of the blossoms were continued through the day, 
but the birds were saving their strength for the 
next morning. 

The travellers tramped on. 

The path led them along the mountain gorge 
south of Eagle Cliff. This massive formation of 
rock is one of Lafayette’s formidable spurs. It 
lifts its imposing ledges to a height of almost fif- 
teen hundred feet above the Profile House, to 
which it is a neighbor. There are beautiful effects 
produced by the clouds when these stately travel- 
lers brush with their proud robes the face of the 
cliff. When the day is going, its last light as if a 
loving painter touches up that same rocky wall 
with fair but fleeting shades. It is called Eagle 
Cliff, though no eagles are there. The discovery 
of an eagle’s nest by Dr. Thomas Hill many years 
ago proved what a favorite haunt it may have been 
in former days, and determined its name for mod- 
ern days. 

The Merrys passed over this section of their 
climb, and then threaded the. mountain pass be- 
tween Lafayette’s main ridge and the cliff. 

They struck at last a mountain plateau from 
which they saw the gates of a mountain world open- 
ing amid the haze in the north ! How royally the 
blue mountains towered ! 

“ Hold awhile, father !” said Rob. 

“ Just a moment. We had better push on, select 


120 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS . 


and make our camp, and then we can take things 
easy, Rob.” 

Beyond this outlook they went to a point where 
a camp would have shelter from the night wind, 
and from which they could in the morning push on 
hopefully to a sunrise view from Lafayette. Little 
Shelter was soon pitched, and a good camp fire 
kindled. 

“ That will keep off wild beasts,” Rob told his 
father. 

They had an early supper and then took a long, 
last look at the great mountains rising in majesty 
about them, the black shadows deepening in the 
gorges, while above, the sun kindled into gold and 
crimson and purple, the clouds hanging in the west 
the compensating glory of their gorgeous drapery 
about the kingly peaks so soon to fade into retire- 
ment. When the sun had gone down, they waited 
until the pure faces of the stars peeped timidly out, 
and then they crept into Little Shelter. 

They left a good fire burning, sending up lively 
sparks toward the sky, soon studded with bright 
stars, as if only scintillations from that camp fire, 
caught in the close meshes of the night’s veil. 
How impressively the old constellations came out ! 
There was the Great Bear shining just above the 
great, solemn heights of the mountain fastnesses. It 
seemed as if this ursine adventurer had scaled those 
slopes and then sprung into the sky, there in a golden 
chariot to ride all night long round the North Star. 


CLIMBING LAFAYETTE. 


12 1 


“ I will keep account of time and see that you 
are up early in the morning, so that you need not 
worry, father,” Rob had said. 

“ Thank you, Robert,” replied the sleepy cap- 
tain, who had turned over to his side of the tent. 

“ Mind, don’t worry !” Rob said again. “ I have 
a whole pack of matches here, and a little stone to 
scratch them on, and I’ll see what my watch says.” 

“ Rob, thank — k — k — ee — ee !” The last word 
ended in a snore. 

It seemed to Rob as if he were scratching 
matches just about all the night. 

Scratch — ch — ch went a match. 

“ Oh, bother !” exclaimed Rob. “ Quarter of 
nine!” 

Scratch — ch ! “ Nonsense ! Twenty minutes past 
nine !” 

Scratch — ch ! “Ten o’clock only ! See here, 
I wish to go to sleep and wake up after a long, re- 
freshing nap — well, say just before three — yes, wake 
up then.” 

Scratch — ch ! “ Eleven only !” 

Rob lifted the tent wail and peeped out. In the 
heavens that rider in the golden chariot was still 
enjoying his stolen opportunity. 

Scratch — ch ! “ Twelve only ! See here, this 

is getting to be a nuisance. However, I told fa- 
ther I’d wake him up, and I will keep my w T ord.” 

When he woke again it was because somebody 
was calling : “ See here, boy ! I have just been 


122 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


out, and it is most sunrise. Come out, quick ! 
Leave everything ! Come on ! Hurry !” 

There was the captain in the morning light 
springing away into a run, his stout figure 
dimly outlined against the dusky sky, barehead- 
ed, swinging his hat, shouting, “ Come on, Rob- 
ert !” 

There was no toilet to be made, for they had not 
undressed. Rob seized his hat and sprang after 
his father. 

“ Oh, dear ! I overslept ! What a booby ! Hold 
on, father, hold on !” Rob was crying. 

“ No, no ; come on, quick, or we shall lose it ! I 
am not coming up here for nothing !” 

Away went the captain and away went Rob, on 
and up, over ledges, turning boulders, jumping over 
bushes, and forsaking all hints of a path if they 
thought a short cut to the summit were feasible, 
Rob laughing, the captain bawling, “ Come on, 
boy ! We shall lose it !” 

Suddenly the captain stumbled, and went sprawl- 
ing. 

That stopped the mad rush for the summit. 

“Oh, father, did you hurt yourself? Let me 
help you up ! Too bad !” 

“ Oh, I didn’t hurt me ! All right, Rob ! I am 
on my feet.” 

Then the captain laughed and Rob laughed, 
their voices echoing in the still morning air about 
lonely Lafayette. 


CLIMBING LA FA YE TTE. 


123 


“ He is just like a boy,” thought Rob. •“ That 
makes me love him all the more.” 

“ Rob, I’ve come to my senses, and we will stop 
and breathe.” 

“ Yes, let’s take it easy, or not so hard anyway.” 

“ I’m dreadfully afraid we shall find we’ve lost 
it. Something of a long, hard climb from our tent 
to the top !” 

“ Oh, father ! just one moment ; stop to see the 
view !” 

“ Come on, Rob ! We will see the view from 
the top of the mountain.” 

The stars were paling rapidly. 

The Golden Bear’s ride was over, and constella- 
tions once proudly prominent were humbly taking 
seats far in the west. The morning star was still 
trying to maintain his cheerful lustre, but a dizzy 
and threatening faintness had overtaken him the 
higher he mounted. 

As the light in the east sharpened, grand and 
weird was the scene everywhere. In the east it 
looked natural enough. Here was a broad band 
of purplish mist, edged with orange, stretching 
across the sky. This was not a strange display of 
color. Fretting against the base of these purple 
folds and extending far, far back toward Lafayette, 
was an uneasy sea of mist, up through which jutted 
the mountain peaks like crests of ebony in this white 
sea. In another quarter the summits were like 
marine monsters of strange shape and vast bulk, 


24 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


ichthyosauri floating in this morning ocean. Then 
the mountain ridges took the form of animals pre- 
Adamite, huge, misshapen, that had thrust up 
their heads and now lay dormant. 

Rob and his father, pushing for the summit, no- 
ticed all this time the strange creatures of which 
mist and mountains and the imagination of human 
beings were the fabricators. 

“ F — father,” said the panting Rob, “ those 
mountains make you think of a menagerie — lions, 
camels, elephants, and so on.” 

“ Yes; and I was thinking of old Lafayette ris- 
ing up out of this mist like Noah’s Ark in the 
deluge. And you and I are — ” 

Noah and Shem — part of the family, any 
way.” 

From this point to the highest part of the moun- 
tain it was not a long climb. Rob was cheered on 
by the captain. 

“ Come on !” “ Most up !” “ Soon there !” 

Reaching the summit, they sat down and looked 

off. 

“ There he is !” shouted the captain. “ See !” 

There was a faint arc of pink above the mist, and 
this arc was swelling upward and downward, and 
hung like a globe that was detained by soft bands 
of vapor. 

“ This is not daybreak, father. The sun is too 
high up.” 

“ I came to that conclusion myself, Rob, just 


CLIMBING LAFAYETTE. 


125 


after I shouted the last time, ‘ Not up yet ! ' How- 
ever, I think we are going to get something finer 
than any coming up of the sun into a clear sky. 
Only see the mist !” 

There were now immense rifts in the vapor, and 
these afforded glimpses of the deep valleys that 
stretched far down and between the mountains. 
In one place the sunlight was pouring into a val- 
ley-cup and filling it, while above it, was the mist 
scattering and rolling up like smoke from an im- 
mense fire that the sun had kindled. Rob caught 
sight of a lake over the greater part of which the 
mist had settled in white tufts like the bloom of a 
big cotton-field. Over one mountain crag this 
same morning mist was pouring like a sheet of crys- 
tal dashing over a dam, while against another crag 
it was rolling up and turning over like the surf 
beating against a rocky shore. 

The quick eye of the sailor caught the latter 
effect. 

“ Rob, that mist over there at the right is just 
like a heavy sea rolling up and breaking, and 
hark ! there is the wind down in the forest ! Just 
like the sound of breakers, Rob !” 

One field of mist coldly shone in the sun like red 
snow. That sun was no longer detained by bands 
of vapor. These seemed to waver, and then broke 
like the fastenings of a balloon rising up in ma- 
jesty. The mountains were now coming into 
harder outline as the mist dissipated. They were 


126 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


like ridges of black basalt or masses of carved 
ebony set on scowling, gloomy depths of shadow. 

“ Oh, father,” shouted Rob, “ talk about Noah’s 
Ark ! See that mountain away over there, the 
highest we have seen ! On it is something small, 
just like an ark, clingingto the top. Look through 
this glass, you can see it plainer !” 

The Merrys always took with them a good field 
glass, and they proceeded to handle it now. 

Yes, there it was, a bold, lofty, majestic moun- 
tain, its summit ark-capped. 

“ Rob,” said the captain in a low, solemn tone, 
as if noticing some revered object, ” that is Mount 
Washington, with its Summit House.” 

“ Three cheers for the king of the mountains !” 
shouted Rob, throwing up his hat. 

As the sun rose higher, as the mist rolled farther 
away, other mountains were uncovered and rec- 
ognized. 

“ Kearsarge !” cried Rob. 

Yes, Kearsarge, with its shapely head. 

“ Chocorua, Rob !” 

Yes, Chocorua, with its stubborn, defiant horn ; 
Haystack and Pyramid too, with their graceful 
cones of sapphire. Toward the south the beautiful 
Pemigewassett Valley was coming out from behind 
its veil of mist, the sun lighting up a bed of crystal 
wherever its rays touched the river. In the south- 
west was Moosilauke’s noble sweep of azure, while 
Mount Kinsman rose in its majesty to the right of 


CLIMBING LAFAYETTE. 


127 


Moosilauke. Opposite Lafayette was Profile or 
Cannon Mountain, with its reddish ledges. 

“ Can we see the Profile House, father ?” 

“ No, that is hidden. It is behind Eagle Cliff ; 
but beyond is Echo Lake, black now with shadows. ” 

The Vermont mountains were standing up like 
sentinels in a stately line, while to the right a dra- 
pery of mist swept low and hid many northern 
peaks, like Prospect and Pleasant, Agassiz and Car- 
mel, Cherry and Bigelow, that giant watch-tower 
rising up among and guarding the secrets of the 
Maine woods. 

There were fascinating changes of color, and 
mountains at first black wore a blue robe and then 
a green one. There were gorges that Rob thought 
grew blacker and blacker, and they had an air of 
repellent gloom, like the valley of the death-shadow 
in the shepherd-psalm, till suddenly from one he 
heard the notes of birds rising in a triumphant 
sweep, like the cheerful assurances of God’s support 
given to poor, troubled pilgrims in that valley. 
The mountain gorge to Rob became a gallery echo- 
ing with sweet harmonies. So death changes be- 
fore the spirit of trust and praise. 

“ We shall never get the like of this again, Rob,” 
said the captain, his arm sweeping across the range 
of the hill country, with its multitude of pinnacles, 
cones, domes, plateaus, cliffs, peaks, swathed in 
blue or purple, or robed in gray or emerald, while 
close at hand were the mountain gorges, so black 


28 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


still to Rob’s eye, but his ear caught the notes of 
the birds jubilantly singing there. 

“ Hear the birds, father ?” 

“ Yes ; looks dark enough to us, but it is not so 
to those songsters.” 

Rob now wished to go. 

“ Want to go, Rob ? Just take one more look ! 
Get it photographed on your memory. When you 
have got another impression on your mind, then 
look again. Oh, this is grand !” The captain con- 
tinued, “ Look once more ! When you think you 
have got enough, then look again. This is grand, 
Rob ! It is noble company to be in, a royal host, 
kings and queens, presidents and emperors, rising up 
to greet the new sun in the heavens. I am sorry to 
leave such royal presences. We must go, though.” 

Reluctantly the trampers turned away and began 
the descent of the mountain. They reached their 
tent, quickly struck it, and then hastened down the 
mountain, impelled by a longing for breakfast, 
which they purposed to take at the foot of Lafay- 
ette. 

They were about half a mile from the Profile 
House when Rob noticed some one ahead appear- 
ing and then disappearing in a singular way. 

“ Father, I think that man ahead is trying to 
avoid us. There he goes into the woods.” 

“ I wonder who it is ?” 

“ It looks something like Sibley Cargrove, and 
yet I may not be right about it. He has not gone 


CLIMBING LAFAYETTE. 


129 


far, but is sitting down on a log. Let me speak to 
him.” 

Rob quickly returned, accompanied by a young 
man whose air was that of a sick man. He tried to 
smile as he was presented to the captain, and 
look something like his old self, but it was a 
ghastly smile. 

“ I am glad to see you, Mr. Cargrove ; but you 
— you are sick,” the captain told him. 

“ I am sick, the doctor says. I’ve got a cough 
that I don’t like, and I came round here to see if 
the Franconia air would not help me get rid of it. 
I ought not to have come off here before breakfast, 
anyway ; but I was tired of being cooped up in 
the hotel. I couldn’t stay quiet any more than I 
could at Harvard, Rob, and I wanted to see what 
there was on the mountain.” 

Here the old look of wanting to see the world 
came into Sibley’s face, but it quickly passed away, 
and there remained an aspect of weariness and 
pain. 

” He has changed,” thought Rob. ” How thin 
the fellow looks ! Poor fellow ! He is in trou- 
ble.” 

“ Mr. Cargrove, if you haven’t been to break- 
fast, I am thinking whether a cup of our coffee 
would not do you good. Don’t you think so, 
Rob ?” 

“ So it would, father. We can build a fire here 
— it is retired here — and I will get some water.” 


130 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


Sibley hunted up a seat at the foot of a tree and 
watched eagerly the preparations made for the sim- 
ple breakfast. The captain gathered wood for a fire, 
and Rob hunted up water. The kindling of the 
fire, the play of the flames, the making of the 
coffee, were details that Sibley watched with deep 
interest. 

When breakfast was over, he declared that it did 
him great good — “ Best breakfast I have had for a 
long time.” 

When they left this humble little camp, Sibley 
walked away leaning on Rob, who would say, 
“ Lean all you can, please ; harder now !” 

They went with Sibley to the hotel. 

Rob found an opportunity to say this to his fa- 
ther : “ I’ve had a talk with Sibley, and I think he 
is quite sick, for he coughs badly. You know we 
were going to leave the mountains ; and now, if 
you don’t object, I would like to see him to his 
home, he is disabled so. I will leave him at Bithar 
Bushel’s, and be at home the day after you get 
there.” 

At the hour of departure there were three travel- 
lers who looked up to the Old Man and said 
“ Good-bye.” One was an old sailor, but the Man 
of the Mountain paid no attention to the salute of 
the man from the sea. Of the others, one was a 
young fellow in the vigor of complete health, and 
the second an invalid who tried to put some life to 
his wave of the hand, enfeebled though it was. 


CLIMBING LAFAYETTE. 


31 


To health, to sickness, the face, grim and deter- 
mined, paid not the least attention. Long ago his 
mind had been made up to waste no sight upon 
matters near and in the valley, and he stuck to his 
purpose. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


WASTING AWAY. 

B ITHAR BUSHEL’S house and everything 
about it looked like Bithar. There was the 
house. Of course it was not tall and thin. That 
would have been a strange inconsistency. Like 
Bithar, it was stout and low. Its red chimney was 
not of the thin, modern, weather-vane kind, threat- 
ening to go over in every hard wind, but very 
stocky — of the sort Santa Claus finds it so delight- 
fully easy to descend through. As Bithar’s house 
was of a “ country boardin’-house ” kind, it had 
been enclosed on three sides with a piazza. This 
made it look more stout and stocky than ever. 
Then there were the trees, of ample girth, the 
boughs running low and heavy, all saying, “ We 
are only so many Bithar Bushels.” Then there 
was the barn ; not a lank, spindling structure, but 
bulky, suggesting hay-mows rising to the brown 
rafters, cattle fat and stalwart, and a family horse 
sleek and well fed. 

There were the orchards ; not a few rows of puny 
trees going to die, but long lines of growth, sub- 
stantial and thrifty. 


WASTING A WA Y. 


*33 


Bithar’s wife, like Bithar, was of generous girth, 
and of the same generous quality in spirit. There 
were points of difference. He dearly loved a joke, 
and often could be heard laughing long and loud. 
She was of a quiet turn, inclined to gravity. She 
was very good-natured, and had tact enough to 
smile at all of Bithar’s jokes, even when she did 
not understand them. People liked to board with 
her and Bithar. She was a famous cook, and he 
was as obliging a landlord as could be found any- 
where. They did not keep their boarders as 
long this year as was their custom. They had 
another and also greater responsibility to carry — 
that cutting into the heart, where it is most 
tender. 

Besides Bithar and his wife, there was only one 
person in the house ; but it seemed as if he occu- 
pied every room, and as if his presence were outside 
also, all along the piazza. This was Sibley Car- 
grove, wasting away slowly, steadily, and his 
grandparents seemed to droop with him. Each 
began to stoop more than ever, as if carrying round 
a heavy burden. Mrs. Bithar did not look much 
graver than she always did, but Bithar showed it 
in his face, and that big, round, jolly laugh shrank 
and hushed more and more every day. It dwindled 
like a summer brook. 

It was less than a fortnight after Rob Merry had 
brought Sibley home that Bithar, looking up sadly 
from this load he was carrying, saw somebody 


*34 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


whose smile, whose greeting, whose self did Bithar 
much good. 

“ How-dy-do, Mr. Bushel?” 

“ Robert Merry, I de — dee — clare ! How — how” 
— here the pumping commenced — ” howde — ye — 
do? I’m dre’dful glad to see ye ! Come right in ! 
Sibley will be glad to see ye, Miss Bushel, too.” 

“ How is Sibley ?” 

“ Failin’ ! Goin’ like the shadders of the twi- 
light. Nothin’ can stop him — no doctorin’, no 
nussin’. Consumption !” 

Bithar’s eyes were like spring streams filled to 
the brim. 

“ Rob, if you have a chance, say suthin’ to him, 
to — to — sort of prepare his mind — to — to comfort 
him. I have tried, but I gin it up. Break — all 
down !” 

Sibley was sitting in a big easy-chair, looking off 
upon a range of beautiful hills. 

“ Sib — Sibbie,” said Bithar affectionately, “ here 
is Rob Merry !” 

What a change in Sibley’s face ! So old and 
thin and peaked it looked that day ! 

Rob pretended not to notice it. 

“ Sibley, I am glad to see you so comfortable in 
that easy-chair.” 

“ Thank you, Rob. I am glad to see you.” 

“ Now sit down, Rob,” urged Bithar ; “ I will 
leave you two alone.” 

The two young men talked about Sibley’s sick- 


WASTING A WA Y. 


J 35 


ness, but Sibley soon showed that something else 
was on his mind. He spoke in a tired way ;-** Rob, 
I have something — I want to say — to take it back. 
It was — on my mind — at Mount Lafayette — and I 
tried to avoid you. It goes back to — college. I 
said — and of course it was a lie — I gave Mrs. Fen- 
nel and Maggie Gray to understand — left with them 
the impression — that you — drank like a fish. It 
was — a very mean — kind of joking. I am very 
sorry. I ask your pardon.” 

“ Oh, well, the facts in the case won’t hurt me. 
When I am thirsty and there is a mountain brook 
round, I think it must be true. Oh, don’t think of 
that any more ! It’s all settled.” 

“ It has been pressing — on my mind. I have 
talked — with Maggie about it — and told her it was 
not so. I am glad to have you — say it is all settled, 
Rob. The time has come — when I must settle 
things. The fact is — I must — I have got to settle 
them.” 

” Oh, Sibley, keep up your spirits ! It’s one 
half the battle.” 

“ I want to do it, but the battle is all decided — 
one way — and I must settle things — no matter where 
my spirits are — whether up or down.” 

He stopped. 

Soon he began again. “ The fact is, Robert” — 
his tone was unnatural, because so serious — “ when 
at Harvard — I tumbled off the ladder — and I am 
paying for it now. The doctor says my — life was 


1 3 6 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


too irregular — and I took cold — and I am — well, 
let it go ; I tumbled off the ladder.” 

Where had Rob heard that expression before ? 

“ You don’t remember that, Rob ?” 

“ Why, no.” 

“ You have forgotten your own eloquence — your 
speech in the school-house — where Maggie Gray 
was teaching.” 

” Oh, I do remember I said something about a 
ladder, for I did not know what else I could say. I 
was very hard up for ideas. It comes back to me 
now.” 

” I have often thought about — the tumbling off.” 

“ But you have not quoted all : ‘ If you tumble 
off, begin again.’ There’s never a day but I tum- 
ble somehow. I don’t see that we can do anything 
else than begin again.” 

“ Ah ! this beginning again. Rob, just look at 
that mountain !” 

Sibley could not easily run his thoughts along 
the track of a subject any length of time, and he 
had now let them switch off on to something else. 
” Is not that fine ?” 

“ That is beautiful scenery, Sibley.” 

** I think so, Rob. Oh, this beginning again — 
it — is a problem ; but, Rob, a fellow in my situa- 
tion has got to do something.” 

Rob did not attempt to fill up the pause that 
followed. 

Sibley though abhorred such a vacuum as si- 


WASTING AWAY. 


137 


lence, and began again : “ Yes, I’ve got to do some- 
thing, and yet what can I do ? I have tumbled off 
the ladder, and I lie broken at its foot. I can’t 
begin again to climb.” 

“ We can do this : we can submit to God’s will. 
If we do that, God will make the rest plain, won’t 
He?” 

“ Submit — to — God’s will ! What is that ? Rob, 
that is a fine mountain ! Just look !” 

“ Yes, beautiful.” 

“You let me think this over, the submitting. 
You are awful good !” 

“ No, no ! I’m tumbling off the ladder every 
day.” 

“ But to get on again — and for a poor chap like 
me — I see ! Rob, there’s nothing — I can do ex- 
cept — to submit to God’s will.” 

“ That is all any of us can do. I can’t go back 
over the past and try to straighten that out. I can 
be sorry for it — ” 

“ Rob — I” — Sibley was searching Rob with his 
big eyes — “ Rob — I did try to straighten — one 
crooked place — in the past — when I told Maggie 
Gray about my mean — ” 

“ Say, that is all settled. We won’t go over 
it ; and I was going to say as for the future, we 
don’t know the way — how to go. All we can do 
just now is to take — is to take God’s will, submit- 
ting to it and trusting it. It is the best will, the 
wisest will.” 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


138 

“ Yes, I suppose so. Mine is not good for any- 
thing, a fellow that has tumbled off the ladder. 
But, Rob, look — at that mountain — now ! You 
see the sun — comes up right over — that mountain. 
In — the afternoon — the play of the — light is very 
fine along — the slope of the mountain. I like to 
sit here — and watch it. I sometimes think of what 
— there is on the — other side of the — mountain. 
They tell me — some beautiful fields are there — and 
you can get to them — by going through a valley. 
You know, Rob — I have a great curiosity — to see 
things — but I tumbled off — the ladder at Har- 
vard — ” 

“ Oh, I wouldn’t dwell on that.” 

“ The trouble is — it dwells on me. I can’t help 
it. I dream at night — and I think I am falling — 
and I wake up — in a cold sweat. Then I think 
about the future — I know I am going — nobody 
can — keep it from me — or keep me from it. It 
troubles my grandpa and my grandma. They 
will come in — and look at me — and they turn away 
— and try to get away — before I see them crying — 
but there are the tears in their eyes. They are just 
as tender as can be. Now, I’m in a tight fix, and 
don’t you think so ? You nod your head. The 
fact is, Rob, I — I’m going away, but I shall be 
carried when I go — I’m not to walk out of this 
house — and where ? That sobers me. But look 
at that mountain now, Rob ! There is a bit of 
white cloud — curling over its top. That is fine ! 


WASTING A WA Y. 


39 


The fact is, Rob, I am going somewhere, and I’ve 
— wondered how it will look. It seems queer that 
I, who have so wanted — to see things — should 
have that before me. But how do I know — there 
is any place for me — the fellow that tumbled off 
the ladder ?” 

“ Sibley, see here !” 

Sibley fastened his eyes on Rob’s face eagerly. 

“ Sibley, we all of us make our mistakes, and I 
am not going to let you have it your way that you 
have done all the tumbling, for I know how it is 
with me. But I know this also : that we can leave 
ourselves in the hands of God, to forgive us, take 
us, do with us as seems to Him best. And those 
beautiful fields beyond the mountain — the fields a 
valley leads to — yes, I believe in those. I believe 
Christ came to tell us about them, and to die for 
us and to take us there, to the Shepherd’s fold on 
the other side of the mountain. We can’t get there 
in our own strength, but He will take us tlrere if 
we give up to Him.” 

Sibley’s eyes were on the mountain. ** The 
Shepherd’s fold in the beautiful — fields beyond the 
mountains. That’s quite an idea. And He will 
take us there — that is good news — for the folks 
that have had a tumble — and are bruised — and sore 
all over — and surely can’t walk there — who can 
only sit — or lie in bed — and perhaps cough !” 

” There, Sibley, that makes me think I am stay- 
ing too long.” 


140 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“ Oh, no ! This is one of the days — when I don’t 
happen to cough. When I do cough — then I’ll see 
grandpa’s sad face stuck in at that door, and grand- 
ma’s eyes red with weeping will — look in another 
door — and it makes me nervous. They will come 
up — to me and pity — and go away crying — but you 
don’t make me nervous — you come again — and 
soon — to-morrow, and stay longer.” 

“ Who takes care of you, Sibley ?” 

“ Oh, I have as many as four ; there’s the doc- 
tor — and grandpa — and there’s grandma — and 
there’s Sibley Cargrove.” 

“ Those the four ?” 

“ Yes, and it’s quite a quar — tette.” 

Sibley was laughing now. 

“You’ve made — me laugh, Rob — I haven’t 
laughed before — for a week.” 

Here Bithar put in his head at one door and 
Mrs. Bushel put her face in at another door, but 
both were very smiling. Then softly, silently they 
slipped away like shadows. 

“You saw that, Rob? I call it my dissolving 
view. Now, you see if I had — coughed, they would 
have — looked very different.” 

“ I see ; well, I shall be stopping a few days at 
a boarding-house, and I’ll come in again. I’ll be 
in to help. Don’t worry.” 

In a few days Captain Merry received this note : 

“ My dear Father : I wonder if you will con- 
sent to this plan. I have said nothing about it to 


WASTING A WA V. 


141 

anybody here, and will not speak of it until I first 
hear from you. I was coming home, you know, 
to talk over business-arrangements for the future 
between you and your son Rob, but would you be 
willing to delay the conference a few weeks ? Sibley 
Cargrove is hopelessly sick, and his death is a 
question of a few weeks, the doctor says. As only 
his grandparents are in the house, I think another 
person is needed. I want to offer to be his nurse 
or help in the nursing, and can you spare me ?” 

“ Ah !” said the captain, “ that boy has a big 
heart, if he is my boy and I say it. Spare him ? 
Certainly ! I'll go myself if needed.” 

Soon Rob was established as nurse and compan- 
ion for a poor sick fellow who was as grateful as 
could be, and it was a most welcome lift on the 
grandparents’ load. 

Rob’s life at Bithar Bushel’s he retained in mem- 
ory as if the record were cut there. Rob thought 
of the captain’s methods at sea, and divided up his 
time into “ watches.” He generously took the 
night as his share in part, his night watch running 
from ten till sunrise. From noon till sunset he was 
“ on deck again” for another “ watch.” 

The night watch was Rob’s more responsible 
post. 

Toward morning Sibley’s favorite position was 
one allowing him to see that mountain over which 
the sun rose. 

” Strange !” he said one night. “ Here I am — a 


142 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


fellow on the lookout all the time — for something 
new, something beyond. I am caught, stopped — 
and am just — waiting for a move into — the next 
life so strange. I doubt not you are right — I 
can’t puzzle it out — but you say the Good Shep- 
herd will lead me through. Oh, carry — that will 
be nice — I am so — weak — take me through the 
valley into — the green fields beyond — the moun- 
tains. If He will pilot a wandering — obstinate 
sheep once — but willing to go now — He may have 
me. ” 

A cough stopped him here. 

“ Rob,” he whispered, “ I am trying — to be pa- 
tient and cheerful — and — just — trust my Saviour. 
Maybe I can do some — good — that way, helping 
somebody who has tumbled off the ladder. Sha’n’t 
have lived in — vain — perhaps — perhaps — poor Sib- 
ley !” 

He was patient and brave and cheerful. A 
nobility was shining out of his soul like the flash of 
an unsuspected diamond on the ground when at 
night a light falls upon it. 

“ Rob, you — you say — some of those prayers — 
you have,” he asked after the above words. ‘ ‘Amen’ ' 
was his reverent response to Rob’s words in prayer. 
“ Guess now — I’ll face — the mountain,” he said, 
turning his weary eyes toward the hills, though in 
shadow. 

But he wanted change soon. 

“ Tired !” he murmured. 


WASTING A WA Y. 


43 


“ Sibley, there is a psalm I would like to read, 
may I ?” 

“ Oh, yes — anything — do.” 

Rob read the beautiful psalm, “ I will lift up mine 
eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” 

“ That is it, Rob, that’s like music — what I 
want.” 

He turned toward the mountain, closed his eyes, 
and his lips moved. 

” He is saying the psalm,” thought Rob. 

One day, at the quiet twilight- hour, Sibley look- 
ed up wistfully. 

“ Do you want anything, Sibley ?” 

” I was — thinking — how good it would — taste if 
I had a drink — from the spring — in the pasture ; 
but I don’t — want — to trouble you.” 

His lips were parched and dry and bloodless. 

“ You shall have it, Sibley. I’ll get some one to 
stay with you.” 

When Rob had found the spring he sunk his 
pitcher deep into the cool crystal bubbling up from 
the silvery sands, and started for the house. He 
was about to enter, when, looking round, he saw 
out in the road — Maggie Gray, was it ? 

“Wonder where she has been all this time?” 
thought Rob. “ This is the first time I have seen 
her since Class Day. How old and thin she looks ! 
Poor girl ! She is working too hard.” He bowed, 
said, “ How-dy-do ?” and if a poor fellow with 
fevered lips had not been longing for cold spring 


144 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


water he would have gone out and spoken to her. 
To his surprise, she made no response. 

“ Perhaps she’s coming in,” thought Rob ; but 
no one followed him into the house. 

How eagerly Sibley drank the cool water ! 

“ It is delicious !” he told Rob in a whisper. 
“ Makes me think — of what you read — one day 
about Christ’s saying — to folks to — come to Him 
and drink. Yes, it is good !” 

He fell back into a restful slumber, and Rob left 
him to go to his own room until ten, when he would 
begin the long night watch. His thoughts now 
went back to Maggie Gray. He knew that she 
had changed her vacation plans and gone to a 
summer school, and had been studying very close- 
ly ; but why, on her return, did she treat him with 
such cool neglect ? Were close students likely to 
become strangely exclusive ? 

“ She may not have heard me,” thought Rob. 
” Close studying, does it make it hard for people 
to hear ?” 

It could not excuse her neglect to see him. 

“ Close studying may have affected her eyesight. 
Nonsense !” thought Rob. Why did she not 
notice me ?” 

Rob was stirring up quite a whirlwind within his 
bosom because a woman had walked straight down 
the road, not even throwing a little look his way. 
Could she have possibly come to a final conclusion 
that he did drink like a f — f — 


WASTING AWAY. 


!45 


“ Robert !” said a voice suddenly. 

Was it his father speaking ? 

“ When we don’t know the motives of people, 
we had better credit them with what we would 
tike to have them credit us under the same cir- 
cumstances, and then wait for the clearing up of 
any mystery. Judge people by what they are in the 
long run.” 

“That sounds exactly like father,” was Rob’s 
comment, “ and it is all good advice, and I will 
take it. Maggie, poor thing, has been studying 
too hard, and is all worn down. She was preoccu- 
pied, I suppose, when I saw her. Brain folks are 
apt to be preoccupied. I will get up to her father’s 
house soon as I can, and tell her not to study so 
hard. How old she did look ! I dare say I looked 
like Sam Patch when she saw me, wearing my old 
dressing-gown and so on, and she did not know 
me. Yes, just like Sam Patch.” 

He looked in the glass. His hair having been 
blown into a balloon by a discourteous wind, and his 
dressing-gown being old, he decided that he must 
be a perfect picture of Sam Patch. Who would 
know him ? Who could see a resemblance to Rob 
Merry ? 

He went to sleep, and as a reward for his mag- 
nanimous treatment of Maggie Gray, he met her 
when wandering in dreamland. She did notice 
him there, but after this fashion : “I am not going 
to speak to tipplers.” 


146 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


Morpheus came to his relief, flourished his poppy 
stalk above the dreamer, and down he sank into 
those abysms of sleep so delicious, like those deep 
places in the sea inaccessible to troubles on the 
surface. 

He awoke in time for his watch. 

How sick Sibley was that night ! 

Rob was obliged to summon the grandfather, 
and then he hurried off for the doctor. 

“ The end is coming,” whispered the doctor to 
Bithar. “ May not be here for a day or two, 
though. We will make him as easy as we can, for 
it is all we can do.” 

Toward morning Sibley fell into a light slumber. 
His face was turned toward his mountain, as if 
gratefully looking in prayer up to the heavenly 
hills. Rob was glad to have the light breaking 
over Sibley’s mountain, and touch pityingly the 
dying man’s face. 

Rob had not said it, but he wished some one 
would come and help Bithar and his wife through 
their watch. 

“ It teches me where I feel it,” Mrs. Bushel had 
confessed to Rob. “ I’m glad the poor boy won’t 
have to pass but a few more sich nights like the 
last. It teches Bithar too.” 

Rob was glad when, waking up from his forenoon 
rest, he heard through an opened door a new voice 
down-stairs. ” Some relative, and I hope she can 
stay to-day. Why, that is Maggie Gray ! I’ll go 


WASTING A WA Y. 


147 


to the door and listen. Yes, it is she. I don’t 
know as I ought to be eavesdropping, but it isn’t 
so bad as to be a tippler ! Hark ! What is she 
saying?” wondered Rob. “Hark!” 

“ Yes, I will stop, Mrs. Bushel, and gladly. You 
know I have been away, and I could not come be- 
fore. And can I be spared at home ? Oh, yes. 
My cousin has come to make us a visit, and she 
will look after my father.” 

There was a little interim of silence. The eaves- 
dropper listened again, and heard this : “ How old 
is she ? Oh, she is ten years older than I am ; but 
they say she looks like me, and people say to her, 
‘ Maggie, how old you are looking ! ’ As she came 
down the road last night on an errand, I dare say 
many may have said, * There goes Maggie Gray. 
Why doesn’t she speak ? ’ And it was only So- 
phrony, who does not know anybody here — my 
Cousin Sophrony !” 

“ There !” exclaimed Rob. “ What a wretch I 
was ! And Sophrony thought me an impudent fel- 
low probably. The next time she is out walking I 
hope she will go tagged, with a big tag, too, say- 
ing ‘ Cousin Sophrony ! ’ ” 

Rob met Maggie Gray soon as he possibly could, 
and it was in a little entry outside of Sibley’s room. 
She was bringing out a tray. 

How sweet and pure and trustful was her 
face ! Those deep-blue eyes were full of a cordial 
confidence in Rob. In its welcome her voice 


4 8 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


was as sincere as had been the greeting in her 
eyes. 

“ Let me be your assistant,” she said. 

“ Assistant !’ ’ thought Rob, when he had stepped 
into the sick-room and looked around. ‘ ‘ Principal, 
if anything ! See the changes in the short time she 
has been here !” 

He was quick to observe improvements, and 
these showed that a woman-nurse with taste and 
tact had come. Mrs. Bushel had been a kind and 
loving attendant, but so near the tearful surface 
were her feelings, that she looked at things through 
a very misty veil, and so might overlook defects. 
And then she lacked by nature that sharper, nicer 
perception with which Maggie had been endowed, 
and which makes any nurse thus gifted an in- 
valuable aid. 

A tidy hung carelessly over the back of a chair 
had been rearranged. A cloth on a table, turned 
up negligently, had been smoothed down and 
forced to hang true and even. Several useless vials 
had been sent into exile. Two vases on the man- 
tel had been filled and sweetened with nasturtiums 
and mignonette, sweet alyssums and forget-me- 
nots. The bed clothes were pulled out and evenly 
adjusted. As for the chairs, they had all previous- 
ly been set down in a funereal primness along the 
walls, as if only waiting for the mourners, and Rob 
had made it a matter of conscience not to disturb 
them. Maggie broke up this funereal row and dis- 


WASTING AWAY. 


149 


posed the chairs naturally, as if callers had just been 
occupying them, or a few of Sibley’s friends were 
expecting to drop in. 

Sibley could not say very much, but he appre- 
ciated the changes. 

I like to see it,” he whispered, looking round 
the room. Then he dropped into a drowsiness 
which looked like the beginning of the final sleep. 

He came out of the drowsiness, and noticed Rob 
and Maggie on opposite sides of his bed. 

“You — got a prisoner — have you?” he asked. 
“ Ah ! he will — break — his walls soon.” 

He paused. 

He looked from one to the other. 

Such a contrast between the aspect of blooming 
health on either side of his couch and that scene on 
the bed, humanity frost-struck and withering ! 

“You must — be — very — very good friends — you 
two — and I wish — ” 

He said no more then, and fell back again into 
an unintelligent drowsiness. 

Rob thought he would like to know what Sib- 
ley’s wish might have been. Perhaps Maggie made 
room for the same desire in her thoughts. So the 
day wore away, and the most of the time she was 
alone with Sibley while Rob slept. She was 
obliged to leave late in the afternoon, but said she 
would come again. 

“ Thank you !” he whispered. 

When Rob appeared on deck, as he called it, for 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


I 5° 

the long night watch, Sibley told Rob that Maggie 
was very kind. “ She is coming again,” Sibley 
added,” but I sha’n’t be here in the morning, if she 
means to come then.” 

” Oh, you may be.” 

Sibley shook his head. 

” The Shepherd will take care of you, Sibley.” 

” I am in his arms, Rob. Say !” 

” What is it ? Can I do anything ?” 

” Yes, sing something, please.” 

” What ?” 

” Sing a college song.” 

” What shall it be ?” 

” ‘ Fair Harvard.’ ” 

” I — I am afraid I can’t sing it well enough. 
I’ll try.” 

He sat down at an old melodeon, and sang gently 
as he played. 

” I never hearn a psalm tune sung better. ’Twas 
real comfortin’,” Mrs. Bushel was so considerate 
as to say, for the music reached her. 

There was a step heard approaching the door, 
and Maggie Gray entered, looking fresh as a morn- 
ing flower. 

“I have had my rest,” she told Rob, “and 
thought I could not stay away. I wanted to stand 
by him.” 

Sibley smiled, and beckoned wearily to Mag- 
gie. 

“You are — very kind — to come,” he said, as she 


WASTING A WA Y. 


I5i 

put her ear down to the dying man’s lips, moving 
feebly ; “ could you — sing something ?” 

“ What shall it be ?” 

“ You and — Rob sing — that again.” 

“ * Fair Harvard ’ ?” asked Rob. “ She knows 
it.” 

Sibley nodded his head. 

She touched so lightly the melodeon keys and 
sang so sweetly it seemed as if a robin had gone 
across the ivory notes, warbling as it hopped. 

Rob’s voice did not come in as an intruder, dam- 
aging Maggie’s notes. It gave them support, com- 
pleting the structure, not overwhelming it. It is 
genius when a second singer or an accompanist can 
add their notes so as to round out and fulfil the 
meaning in the voice that leads. Sibley listened 
eagerly to this second rendering of “ Fair Har- 
vard,” and closed his eyes as if in a delicious 
trance : 

“ Fair Harvard, thy sons to thy jubilee throng, 

And with blessings surrender thee o’er, 

By these festival rites, from the Age that is past 
To the Age that is waiting before. 

O Relic and Type of our ancestors’ worth, 

That has long kept their memory warm ! 

First flower of their wilderness ! Star of their night, 
Calm rising through change and through storm !” 

They sang only one verse to Sibley, that they 
might not weary him. 

His eyes sparkled, and he kept murmuring, 


J 5 2 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


“‘Star — of their night!’ — that’s what I want — 
that shines — till morning.’’ 

At midnight he was quiet. Later, he was rest- 
less again. 

“ ‘ Star of their night’ — shines till morning — 
that’s what I want. Good-bye,’’ whispered Sib- 
ley, trying to hold out his hands to the weeping 
Bithar and his wife, to Maggie and Rob. “ The 
Shepherd — will — come before morning.’’ 

When Rob stooped down, Sibley whispered, “ I 
want — to — kiss — you . ’ ? 

Then he closed his eyes. 

He opened them. 

He whispered, “ Turn me toward the — ’’ he 
stopped. He began again, “ Tarn me toward — ” 

“ ‘ Mountin ’ he means,’’ said Mrs. Bithar tear- 
fully. 

Rob gently turned him toward the mountain that 
the darkness covered. 

But he did not go yet. 

There was one rough place in the valley path. 

He who trod it for us all found there the prick 
of thorns, and there were sharp-cutting stones. 
Hands and feet were torn, and there was a cruel 
wound in His side. He knows how to sympathize 
with any traveller hard beset, and Sibley trusted 
the guide who was leading Him. A sweet smile 
never wholly left his face. If at any time pain 
threatened to drive it away, it came back again. 
Before the dawn he whispered, “ I don’t — seem 


WASTING AWAY. 


153 


to — see. Is there any light above the — moun- 
tain ?” 

“It is coming, I think. I will go out to see,” 
Rob told him. 

He went to the door and saw a big milk-white 
star in the east, set in the dark above the mountain, 
like a flake of snow in ebony. 

“ The morning star is there, Sibley.” 

“ Thank God ! I am — most — there !” 

He breathed peacefully now, shorter, shorter, 
and very soon he had passed with the Shepherd by 
the valley road into the beautiful fold beyond the 
mountains. 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE RESCUE. 

4 4 OOD-BYE, Old Man of the Mountain !” 

VJT It was Maggie Gray who said this down 
in the Notch road cleaving the Franconia Moun- 
tains. On her way to her school duties, she had 
decided to come down the Pemigewassett Valley, 
as she wished to see a sick young woman once her 
scholar in a valley school. Maggie was now look- 
ing at the stern profile set in the everlasting crags. 

“ Good-bye !” she said again. “ Good-bye, Old 
Man of the Mountain ! You are nothing unless 
you are decision itself.” 

Among some of her friends Maggie Gray was the 
subject of much discussion. Why should she so 
persistently teach ? She had a father who had not 
been rich enough to give her an education, but still 
he could make a home for her, though not luxuri- 
ous. Why would she not rest awhile, and why this 
fall begin school so early ? Were there not schools 
that would give her less laborious work, that also 
began later ? This was a well-paying school ; but 
why not teach for less and work less and favor her- 
self more ? 


THE RESCUE. 


155 


Maggie had an interesting way of dealing with 
people who differed from her, and who might have a 
positive way of stating that difference. She would 
look at them with her expressive blue eyes — eyes 
that spoke — yet she would not utter a word, all the 
while pleasantly listening. Then she would quiet- 
ly go her own way and do as she wished. 

She was now going her own way, first to see an 
old scholar who was sick with something an aunt 
said Maggie might “ ketch,” and then to begin an 
early school, which another aunt said would be the 
“ death of Maggie.” 

Of course, amid her movements she sometimes, 
even very often, thought of Rob Merry. His in- 
terest in Sibley Cargrove, his bringing into harbor 
a poor fellow who was storm-tossed, showed to her 
that Rob Merry ought to make the spiritual care 
of humankind, and the physical also, as far as he 
could, his lifework. 

And Rob ? 

He had virtually decided to give himself to that 
kind of work, but preparation was needed for it. 
There were schools of preparation, but they could 
not take care of him for nothing. If he only had a 
little money at the start he could obtain tutoring 
after awhile, and so help provide for his support. 
Just now he wanted money, but his father could 
not furnish it. This need of money kept Rob at 
home. He was not entirely sorry, for it gave him 
an opportunity to be with his father at a time when 


156 TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 

Captain Merry needed help. The American busi- 
ness world was feeling a very severe financial strain. 
It was not just a hard wind, but a very hard wind, 
very much out of temper. It struck “ old houses” 
even as a gale at sea bursts upon stanch old craft, 
snaps their masts or rolls them over on their beam- 
ends or sends them ashore at night, when they 
expected to make in the morning a comfortable 
harbor. Captain Merry thought his business as a 
ship-chandler might be wholly wrecked. 

“ Rob,” said his father as they sat down in the 
Merry counting-room, “ I am afraid I have got to 
fail ; and yet if I had just eight or ten hundred 
dollars in ready cash, money in my hand I could 
see, I think I could weather this storm.” 

“ Fail ?” 

That was a dreadful world. 

It not only meant the mortification of ill success, 
but the downfall of the business, the selling of the 
captain’s house probably, and the ruin of a home. 

“ Fail” might be a small word as to size, but it 
threw a big black shadow down on Rob Merry. 

“ Fail, father, and for want of eight or ten hun- 
dred dollars ? How so ?” 

“ There are always two classes of creditors in a 
community : those who cannot or will not consent 
to any delay, and those who are indulgent. Sev- 
eral of the first class are after me now. Spence 
Brothers are not only refusing to let me have 
goods, but they are pressing me for four hundred 


THE RESCUE. 


57 


dollars, the sum I owe them. Jonas Tappan, that 
narrow little Shylock, threatens, if I don’t pay him 
two hundred dollars before night, to shut me up — 
yes, attach my goods ! Those two claims make six 
hundred dollars. Then if I had four hundred dol- 
lars that I could use at once, cash money, I could 
buy goods that a fleet of fishing vessels due this 
week would surely take off my hands, and I could 
make a handsome profit on the purchase. Oh, 
dear !” 

“ But, father, don’t people owe you ?” 

“Owe? Yes, a number of thousand dollars; 
but I don’t want to shut them up and stop their 
business when a little indulgence will give them 
time to recover.” 

“ Then the medicine Spence Brothers and old Shy- 
lock want to administer to you, you are noble enough 
not to dose out to others. I am proud of my fa- 
ther ! But don’t worry, father ! Those guns can’t 
hit you till they are fired off.’’ 

“ I know it ; but I am afraid they may be fired 
off any moment. I will go down on Long Wharf 
a few moments.’’ 

What could Rob say ? What could Rob do ? 
What if he went out and tried his hand at “ finan- 
ciering’’ for his father ? 

When this financier stepped out into the street, 
he saw somebody resembling Bithar Bushel ! 

It certainly was Bithar, if anybody. 

He rushed up to invite Bithar into the store. 


158 TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 

“ Dreadful glad to see ye, and I will come in if 
I can,” was Bithar’s reply to a cordial invitation ; 
“ but I’m just here in town to attend to a little 
court business. My grandson, Sibley, was heir to 
a leettle money that a relative left him — leettle, did 
I say ? It was considerable to him, . being two 
houses in this town, and considerable to his known 
relatives, who are his heirs ; but somebody turns 
up — an unknown relative — who has made a grab, 
I call it, that’s what it amounts to, jest a grab, and 
the case comes up in court to-day I, expect, and 
I’m hurryin’ to git thar ; but I’ll be in to see ye if 
I can. Dreadful glad to see ye now !” 

“ I will walk along with you to the next corner. 
Oh, Mr. Bushel — I know you will excuse it — but 
do you — think — do you think you could lend 
father a little money ? These hard times have 
struck his business hard, and he is very much wor- 
ried — and — ” 

“ My dear boy, I’m dreadful sorry, dread- 
ful !” 

Bithar stopped short and looked his regrets. 

“And you have been so kind to me, and we shall 
never forgit it ; but these hard times struck a rail- 
road owin’ me and about knocked the breath out 
of it, and a man that owed me failed, and — really, 
I had to borrow money jest to pay my car-fare here ! 
Dreadful sorry for ye, Rob !” 

“ And I am sorry for you, Mr. Bushel.” 

“ We can sympathize. Mebbe you can come to 


THE RESCUE. 


59 


the court-room in two or three hours if I don’t turn 
up at your office.” 

After a short walk Rob turned and went back to 
the counting-room. He was not holding his head 
so high. “ Guess,” said Rob, ** I will not discour- 
age father by saying anything about my * financier- 
ing.’ ” 

The business sky hanging over the Merry count- 
ing-room continued very cloudy. The captain re- 
turned to the counting-room to sit with bowed 
head, looking abstractedly into an empty corner. 

After awhile he went into the store to buttonhole 
for a loan a neighbor who had dropped in. 

” Would like to, cap’n, but the market is awful 
tight,” was the reply. 

“ Awful tight !” reflected the perplexed ship- 
chandler, going back to the counting-room. “ I 
knew that before. Wish somebody would tell me 
some news, and not harp on that old string.” 

Finally somebody came in carrying in his hand a 
green bag. 

The captain was then sitting with bowed head, 
facing the empty corner, holding in his hand a slip 
of paper on which was the date when he thought 
he might be obliged to sell his house. That dear 
home to be given up ! The thought was torment. 

Looking sidewise, he could see the green bag and 
two legs that had come into the office. 

The sight of the green bag made him nervously 
crumple the bit of paper in his hand, and he bowed 


i6o 


TWO COLLEGE BO YS. 


his head still lower. That green bag mounted on 
two legs ! It did really look as if this legal device 
to get at Captain Merry and torment him had as- 
sumed legs that it might get at him all the faster ! 

“ Somebody has come to attach my goods and 
shut me up,” inwardly moaned the captain. 

“ Oh, Father Merry !” a voice was saying. 

At the sound of this voice Captain Merry turned 
round. 

“ Why, that you, Maurice Kennard ?” asked the 
captain. 

“ Yes ; and I have good news.” 

The captain raised his head. 

“ Cheer up !” 

The captain’s head went up still higher. 

“ I have brought you some money !” 

The captain jumped from his seat. 

“ Oh, you haven’t, have you, Maurice ?” 

‘‘Yes, a thousand dollars in cash.” 

The captain sprang forward and grasped the 
young lawyer’s hand. 

“ Maurice, you are an angel ! Where — where 
did you get a thousand dollars ?” 

“You very kindly let a person have some money, 
and that person wishes to pay it through me and 
take a receipt, and I have made out a form of re- 
ceipt if you will kindly sign.” 

He handed the captain a paper. 

“ I am delighted, and I am surprised. Who is 
the person ? There are several parties owing me a 


THE RESCUE. 


161 

thousand dollars if I could collect it and not dis- 
tress them ; and this, I suppose, is one of my 
debtors.” 

He began to read the document. 

11 Why, there’s no person mentioned by name. 
It says, * Received of a debtor through Mr. Maurice 
Kennard— ’ ” 

“ Captain Merry, it is all right, and you please 
take my word for it ; and the person — well, I allow 
you might call it unusual, but the person is com- 
ing to see you, and be assured it is all right — one 
hundred, two hundred, three hundred, yes, three 
hundred — here is a pen, you — four hundred, five 
hundred — you might sign — six hundred — ” 

The captain was handling his pen hesitating- 
ly while the lawyer was counting out the bank- 
bills. 

“ Seven hundred — the party will see you, and 
how much good it will do — eight hundred — that is 
it, sign, now' — nine hundred, ten hundred — good ! 
There, take it !” 

“ I would like to know more about it.” 

“ You shall know more about it. I was actually 
forced by the importunity of this person to do it. 
Some people like to remain unknown. Now, how 
much good it will do ! If you don’t feel satisfied, 
you can pay it back, and — ” 

“ I hope the person was not distressed.” 

“ Not at all by this, but only because there was 
a desire to pay interest, and there was not money 


162 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS . 


enough. Captain, I could not do a thing against 
this. I was forced to bring it to you.” 

“ Singular ! Let the interest go.” 

” Won’t this do good ? I think so.” 

“ ‘ Good’ ?” said the Captain. 

It seemed to the captain as if there never could 
have been a thousand dollars that did more good. 
It was put to use within an hour, the captain say- 
ing, “ I will regard this as a loan, and will return it 
if not satisfied.” 

The money had an angel’s power of blessing. 
How it affected Spence Brothers, who received their 
four hundred dollars ! 

” Captain Merry, I believe, is good for any 
amount of money,” said Spence the senior brother 
to Spence the junior brother. ” We must report it 
at the bank.” 

“ I am indeed pleased,” said the Shylock who 
received his two hundred dollars, and he in his de- 
light spread the news. 

The cash-purchase, in anticipation of the 
arrival of the fishing fleet, Captain Merry made 
at once, and the firm he bought of said, “Come 
again, cap’n, and the sooner the better. Cash 
down is not usual these times. Come again, 
cash or on credit. You can have what you 
want.” 

While the captain was delighted, Rob said, “ Fa- 
ther, I am just like a balloon. My feelings that 
were running so low have gone right up. I never 


THE RESCUE. 163 

knew how great a pressure might come on a busi- 
ness man. ’Twas a hard wind.” 

“ Very heavy sometimes ; but we have weathered 
this point.” 

“ I feel like taking a short vacation of a half hour 
or so to see Bithar Bushel, if you can spare me.” 

” Certainly. I would go too if I could get away. 
Ask him to call if he can. I hope to see him some- 
how.” 

“ While I am gone out I may see somebody and 
get an order for goods.” 

“ I don’t mean you shall get business orders 
long, but start you in your theological studies.” 

“ Don’t think about that to-day. I may get an 
order from some old mariner.” 

Rob was absent so long his father thought he 
must have seen a dozen ancient mariners and done 
a lot of business. Indeed, he had accomplished 
much. 

He burst into the counting-room at last, panting 
away. 

“ Father — I have been gone — longer than I — ex- 
pected. I went — out to walk — and met — well, who 
do you think it was ?” 

‘‘ Bithar Bushel.” 

“ No, Maggie Gray. She was witness to a will 
of a man who lived — here, and he was — a summer 
boarder — when he made his will — at the mountains 
— and there is trouble about the — property, and 
Maggie had to come — from her school as a witness, 


164 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS, 


you know — and her day in court was the same as 
that of Bithar. Of course I wanted to show her 
some attention, and took her to lunch, and — ” 

“ Why didn’t you take her to the house, Rob ?” 

“ Oh, we were out walking until the court had 
had its long dinner ; and, father, what do you 
think ?” 

“ I haven’t any thought in particular, for I am 
waiting to have you give me one.” 

“ I will give you one ; Maggie Gray was the one 
that sent that one thousand dollars !” 

“ Zounds, Robert ! You don’t say so ! What 
for ?” said the astonished captain. 

“ It was to pay back the money you spent on her 
education ; and she has been earning it by keeping 
school and depositing it in our savings bank, and, 
happening to be here and knowing you needed it, 
took it out — ” 

“ Why, Rob, this is a surprise. I can’t — ” 

“ Wait, father. She got hold of our troubles 
through Bithar Bushel, and having her bank-book 
with her to make another deposit, just drew out a 
thousand and made Maurice — yes, made him — she 
has a tremendous will — bring it. He had to, fa- 
ther — and she thought you would not take it if you 
knew — ’ ’ 

“ Oh, Rob, this must not be !” 

“ Father, she wanted to pay interest.” 

“ Oh, never ! And I won’t have this — ” 

” But, father, in our ignorance we have taken it ; 


THE RESCUE . 165 

and she will not take it back. Why, father, if you 
don’t look out she will get interest on you.” 

“ But— but— ” 

“ Father, she is one of a thousand. She is sweet 
as honey, but you can’t bend her will any more 
than you can granite. When I found it out I was 
stirred up just as you are, and I told — ” 

“ But— but— ” 

“ I told Maggie— ” 

“ Robert, do not interrupt, please. Do let me 
get in one word, I beseech you. The money must 
go back soon as possible ; and she never shall pay 
interest. Ridiculous ! It was a joy to educate her. 
I will give her my note for the thousand, to be 
paid — ” 

“ Just as you say, father. I feel just that way 
too, only she has such a will, and — I would press 
the matter very — ” 

“ But — but — ” 

“ Very gently, and — ” 

‘ ‘ Robert Merry, let me stick in a word ! Press 
the matter ? There must be an understanding that 
I do not purpose to keep the money — and, Rob, my 
dear boy, I shall expect you to do all you can — who 
— you — er — er — I mean by taking my part as a 
good son — ” 

“ Yes, father” — here Rob hung his head and 
blushed — “ I will take your part, though, dear fa- 
ther, I — am — I am afraid I have gone over to the 
enemy — for while I was out on that walk, Maggie 


1 66 


TWO COLLEGE BOYS. 


and I became engaged — and we want your blessing 
— and here she is at the door — I came to prepare 
you — ” 

Such a sweet, trusty, w^omanly face at this mo- 
ment showed itself inside the counting-room door ! 
Rob was at her side in an instant, holding her hand 
and looking toward Captain Merry. 

“ Won’t you, father?” 

In husky tones, his eyes swimming in tears, the 
captain lifted his hands in blessing, and said, in a 
broken voice, “ My — dear — children — God — bless 
you !” 


THE END. 


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Round the Globe. Through Greater Britain. With 80 Illus- 
trations. i2mo I 50 

By REV. EDWARD A. RAND. 

A Candle in the Sea ; or, Winter at Seal’s Head. i2mo 1 25 

Fighting the Sea ; or, Winter at the Life-Saving Station. i2mo 1 25 

Making the Best of It ; or, Tumble-up Tom. i2mo 1 25 

Up North on a Whaler ; or. Would he Keep his Colors Flying ? 

i2mo 1 25 

Too Late for the Tide-Mill. i2mo 1 25 

Our Clerk from Barkton ; or, Right rather than Rich. i2mo. . 1 25 

By M. L. RIDLEY. 

The Three Chums. i2mo 1 00 

Walter Alison > His Friends and his Foes. i2mo 1 00 

By W. CLARK RUSSELL. 

Master Rockafellar’s Voyage. Illustrated by Gordon Browne. 

l2mo 1 25 

By MARGARET E. SANGSTER. 

Miss Dewberry’s Scholars. i2mo 1 00 

By GRACE STEBBING. 

Silverdale Rectory ; or, Golden Links. i2mo 1 00 

Only a Tramp ; or, the Golden Links. i2mo 1 00 

In All Our Doings ; or, the Golden Links of the Collects. 

A Story for Boys. i2mo 1 25 

Gold and Glory ; or, the Wild Ways of Other Days. A Story 

of Early American Discovery. i2mo 1 25 

By CATHARINE SINCLAIR. 

Holiday House. 12 mo. 1 00 

By ANNIE S. SWAN. 

Grandmother’s Child and For Lucy’s Sake. i2mo 75 

The Better Part. A Story. i2mo 1 00 

Mark Desborough’s Vow. i2mo 1 00 

The Strait Gate. i2mo 1 00 

By JULIA A. SABINE. 

At the End of the Rainbow. A Colorado Story. i2mo 1 25 


BOOKS FOB THE YOUNG . 


By FREDERICK SAUNDERS. 

The Story of the Discovery of the New World by Colum- 
bus. i2mo i oo 

By EDWARD STEP. 

By Seashore, Wood and Moorland. Peeps at Nature. Pro- 
fusely illustrated. i2mo I i5 

By ESME STUART. 

A Nest of Royalists 75 

A Small Legacy. A Story for Children 90 

The Vicar’s Trio. i2mo 1 50 

Carried Off. A Tale of Pirate Times. i2mo 1 25 

Cast Ashore. i2mo 1 25 

For Half a Crown. i2mo 1 25 

The Silver Mine. An Underground Story. i2mo 1 25 

By ADAH J. TODD. 

The Vacation Club. (Science in Story.) 1 00 

By SA.IAH TYLER. 

A Houseful of Girls. 12 mo 1 5 ° 

Her Gentle Deeds. i2mo 1 5 ° 

By W. PAKENHAM WALSH. 

Heroes of the Mission Field. i2mo 1 25 

Modern Heroes of the Mission Field. i2mo . . 1 50 

By ANNA WARNER. 

Blue Flag and Cloth of Gold. 12 mo 1 00 

By REV. J. G. WOOD. 

Half Hours in Field and Forest. Chapters in Natural His- 
tory. Numerous Illustrations. i2mo, cloth I 5 ° 

Half Hours with a Naturalist. Rambles near the Shore. 

Numerous Illustrations. i2mo, cloth 1 5 ° 

Romance of Animal Life. Short Chapters in Natural History. 

Numerous Illustrations. i2mo, cloth 1 5 ° 

My Backyard Zoo. A Course of Natural History. Numer- 
ous Illustrations. i6mo, cloth 9 ° 



BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. 


By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. 

The Cross Roads; or, A Choice in Life. A Story for Young 

Women and Older Girls. I 25 

Our New Mistress ; or, Changes at Brookfield Earl. i2mo. . 1 25 

Under the Storm ; or, Steadfast’s Charge. i2mo 1 25 

The Cunning Woman’s Grandson. i2mo 1 25 

The Slaves of Sabinus : Jew and Gentile. i2mo 1 25 

The Constable’s Tower; or, The Times of Magna Charta. 

i2mo 1 25 

By ANONYMOUS AUTHORS. 

Banning and Blessing. By the author of “ Mile. Mori.” i2mo. 1 50 
Fiddler of Lugau, The. By the author of “ Mile. Mori.” i2mo. 1 50 
Golden Buckle, The. By the author of “ Starwood Hall,”. ... 1 50 
Home of Fiesole, The, and the Times of Savonarola. By the 

author of “ Children of Seeligsberg,” etc. i2mo 1 25 

Joan’s Victory. By the author of “ Starwood Hall,” etc. i2mo. 75 
King’s Ferry, The, in the Days of the Press-Gang. By the 

author of “ Starwood Hall,” etc. i2mo 1 00 

Kinsfolk and Others. By the author of “Mile. Mori,” etc. 

1 50 

Little Grandpa. By M. A. C., author of “ The Little Episcopa- 
lian,” “ Bessie Melville,” etc. i2mo 1 00 

Little Stepdaughter, A. By the author of “ Mile. Mori.” i2mo. 1 50 

Lost on the Moor. By “Taffy.” i2mo 50 

Net One of Us. By the author of “ Mile. Mori.” i2mo 1 50 

Peckover’s Mill. A Story of the Great Frost of 1739. By the 

author of “ Starwood Hall,” etc. i2mo 1 50 

School and Home ; or, Leaves from a Boy’s Journal. A Tale 

for School Boys. i2mo 1 00 

Starwood Hall. A Boy’s Adventure. i2mo 90 

Stories on the Beatitudes. First Series, i6mo 75 

Second Series. i6mo 75 

Sunny Days Abroad: or, The Old World seen with Young 

Eyes. 1 00 

“That Child.” By the author of “ Mademoiselle Mori.” i2mo. 1 25 

Under a Cloud. By the author of “ Mile. Mori.” i2mo 1 25 

Us Three. By E. A. B. D. i2mo 1 00 

Virginia Dare. A Romance of the Sixteenth Century. By 

E. A. B. S. 1 00 

Young Ishmael Conway. By the author of “ Us Three.” 1 00 





























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library of congress 


0005073183 ? 


